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©ID  TKaorlD  Series 


! 


THE  ISLE  OF  DREAMS 


THE  ISLE  OF  DREAMS 

BY 
FIONA   MACLEOD 


Portland,  Maine 

THom^s  *B.  :moshei^ 

Mdccccix 


Tbii  Second  Edition 
on  Van  Odder  paper 
consists  of  925  copies. 


COPVRlGHr 

THOMAS  B.  MOSHER 

1905 


TO 

YIOLIN  GRAIN 

THIS   BOOK   OF   DREAMS  AND    MEMORIES 
F.   M. 


THE  ISLE  OF  DREAMS 


A  FEW  places  in  the  world  are  to  be  held 
holy,  because  of  the  love  which  conse- 
crates them  and  the  faith  which  enshrines 
them.  Their  names  are  themselves  talismans 
of  spiritual  beauty.     Of  these  is  lona. 

But  to  write  of  lona,  there  are  many  ways 
of  approach.  No  place  that  has  a  spiritual 
history  can,  to  those  who  know  nothing  of 
it,  be  revealed  by  facts  and  descriptions.  The 
approach  may  be  through  the  obscure  glens 
of  another's  mind  and  so  out  by  the  moonlit 
way,  as  well  as  by  the  track  that  thousands 
travel.  I  have  nothing  to  say  here  of  lona's 
acreage,  or  fisheries,  or  pastures:  nothing  of 
how  the  islanders  live.  These  things  are 
the  accidental.  There  is  small  difference  in 
simple  life  anywhere.  Moreover,  there  are 
many  to  tell  all  that  need  be  known. 

There  is  one  lona,  a  little  island  of  the 
west.  It  is  but  a  small  isle,  fashioned  of  a 
little  sand,  a  few  grasses  salt  with  the  spray 
of  an  ever-restless  wave,  a  few  rocks  that 
wade  in  heather  and  upon  whose  brows  the 
sea-wind  weaves  the  yellow  lichen.  But  in 
this  little  island  a  lamp  was  lit  whose  flame 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

lighted  pagan  Europe,  from  the  Saxon  in  his 
fens  to  the  swarthy  folk  who  came  by  Greek 
waters  to  trade  the  Orient.  Here  Learning 
and  Faith  had  their  tranquil  home,  when  the 
shadow  of  the  sword  lay  upon  all  lands,  from 
Syracuse  by  the  Tyrrhene  Sea  to  the  rainy 
isles  of  Orcc.  From  age  to  age,  lowly  hearts 
have  never  ceased  to  ease  their  burthen  here. 
To  tell  the  story  of  lona  would  be  to  go  back 
to  God,  and  to  end  in  God.  There  is  another 
lona,  of  which  I  would  speak.  I  do  not  say 
that  it  lies  open  to  all.  It  is  as  we  come 
that  we  find.  If  we  come,  bringing  nothing 
with  us,  we  go  aw^ay  ill-content,  having  seen 
and  heard  nothing  of  what  we  had  vaguely 
expected  to  see  or  hear.  It  is  another  lona 
than  the  lona  of  sacred  memories  and 
prophecies  :  lona  the  metropolis  of  dreams. 
None  can  understand  it  who  does  not  see  it 
through  its  pagan  light,  its  Christian  light,  its 
singular  blending  of  paganism  and  romance 
and  spiritual  beauty.  There  is,  too,  an  lona 
that  is  more  than  Gaelic,  that  is  more  than  a 
place  rainbow-lit  with  the  seven  desires  of 
the  world,  the  lona  that,  if  we  will  it  so,  is  a 
mirror  of  your  heart  and  of  mine. 

And  that  is  why  I  would  speak  here  of 
lona  as  befalls  my  pen,  rather  than  as  per- 
haps my  pen  should  go :  and  choose  legend 
and  remembrance,  and  my  own  and  other 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

memories  and  associations,  and  knowledge 
of  my  own  and  others,  and  hidden  meanings, 
and  beauty  and  strangeness  surviving  in 
dreams  and  imaginations,  rather  than  facts 
and  figures,  that  others  could  adduce  more 
deftly  and  with  more  will. 

I 

When  I  was  a  child  I  used  to  throw  offer- 
ings—  small  coins,  flowers,  shells,  even 
a  newly  caught  trout,  once  a  treasured 
flint  arrow-head  —  into  the  sea-loch  by 
which  we  lived.  My  Hebridean  nurse  had 
often  told  me  of  Shony,  a  mysterious  sea- 
god,  and  I  know  I  spent  much  time  in 
wasted  adoration :  a  fearful  worship,  not 
unmixed  with  disappointment  and  some 
anger.  Not  once  did  I  see  him.  I  was 
frighted  time  after  time,  but  the  sudden  cry 
of  a  heron,  or  the  snort  of  a  pollack  chasing 
the  mackerel,  or  the  abrupt  uplifting  of  a 
seal's  head,  became  over-familiar,  and  I 
desired  terror,  and  could  not  find  it  by  the 
shore.  Inland,  after  dusk,  there  was  always 
the  mysterious  multitude  of  shadow.  There, 
too,  I  could  hear  the  wind  leaping  and  growl- 
ing. But  by  the  shore  I  never  knew  any 
dread,  even  in  the  darkest  night.  The  sound 
and  company  of  the  sea  washed  away  all 
fears. 


THE   ISLE   OF   DREAMS 

I  was  amused  not  long  ago  to  hear  a  little 
girl  singing,  as  she  ran  wading  through  the 
foam  of  a  troubled  sunlit  sea,  as  it  broke  on 
those  wonderful  white  sands  of  lona  — 

"Shanny,  Shanny,  Shanny, 
Catch  my  feet  and  tickle  my  toes  ! 
And  if  you  can,  Shanny,  Shanny,  Shanny, 
I'll  go  with  you  where  no  one  knows  !  " 

I  have  no  doubt  this  daintier  Shanny  was 
my  old  friend  Shony,  whose  more  terrifying 
way  was  to  clutch  boats  by  the  keel  and 
drown  the  sailors,  and  make  a  death-necklace 
of  their  teeth.  An  evil  Shony ;  for  once  he 
netted  a  young  girl  who  was  swimming  in  a 
loch,  and  when  she  would  not  give  him  her 
love  he  tied  her  to  a  rock,  and  to  this  day 
her  long  brown  hair  may  be  seen  floating  in 
the  shallow  green  wave  at  the  ebb  of  the 
tide.     One  need  not  name  the  place  I 

The  Shanny  song  recalls  to  me  an  old 
Gaelic-alphabet  rhyme,  wherein  a  Maigh- 
deann-Mhara,  or  Mermaid,  stood  for  M,  and 
a  Suire  (also  a  mermaid)  stood  for  s ;  and  my 
long  perplexities  as  to  whether  I  would  know 
a  shuera  from  a  midianmara  when  I  saw 
either.  It  also  recalls  to  me  that  it  was  from 
a  young  schoolmaster  priest,  who  had  come 
back  from  Ireland  to  die  at  home,  that  I  first 
heard  of  the  Beth-Luis-Nuin,  the  old  Gaelic 
equivalent  of  "  the  A  B  c."     Every  letter  in 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

the  Gaelic  alphabet  is  represented  by  a  tree, 
and  Beithe  and  Luis  and  Nuin  are  the  Birch, 
the  Rowan,  and  the  Ash.  The  reason  why  the 
alphabet  is  called  the  Beth-Luis-Nuin  is  that 
B,  L,  N,  and  not  A,  B,  c,  are  its  first  three 
letters.  It  consists  of  eighteen  letters  — 
and  in  ancient  Gaelic  seventeen,  for  H  (the 
Huath,  or  Whitethorn)  does  not  exist  there, 
I  believe :  and  these  run,  b,  l,  n,  f,  s  (h), 
D,  T,  c,  M,  G,  p,  R,  A,  o,  u,  E,  I  —  each  letter 
represented  by  the  name  of  a  tree,  "  Birch, 
Rowan,  Ash,"  etc.  Properly,  there  is  no  c 
in  Gaelic,  for  though  as  a  signature  the  letter 
c  is  common,  it  has  always  the  sound  of  K. 
Since  this  page  first  appeared  I  have  had 
so  many  letters  about  the  Gaelic  alphabet  of 
to-day  that  I  take  the  opportunity  to  add  a 
few  lines.  To-day  as  of  old  all  the  letters 
of  the  Gaelic  alphabet  are  called  after  trees, 
from  the  oak  to  the  shrub-like  elder,  with  the 
exception  of  G,  T,  and  u,  which  stand  for 
the  Ivy,  Furze,  and  Heather.  It  no  longer 
runs  B,  L,  N,  etc.,  but  in  sequence  follows 
the  familiar  and  among  western  peoples 
universal  A,  B,  c,  etc.  It  is,  however,  short 
of  our  Roman  alpbabet  by  eight  letters,  j,  k, 
Q,  V,  w,  X,  Y,  and  z.  On  the  other  hand 
each  of  these  is  represented,  either  by  some 
other  letter  having  a  like  value  or  by  a 
combination :    thus,  K  is  identical   with  c, 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

which  does  not  exist  in  Gaelic  as  a  soft 
sound  any  more  than  it  does  in  Greek,  but 
only  as  the  c  in  English  words  such  as  cat  ox 
cart,  or  in  combination  with  -^  as  a  gutteral, 
as  in  loch  —  while  V,  as  common  a  sound  in 
Gaelic  as  the  hiss  of  s  in  English,  exists 
in  almost  every  second  or  third  word  as  bh 
or  nth.  The  Gaelic  a  b  c  of  to-day,  then, 
runs  as  follows:  Ailm,  Beite,  Coll,  Dur, 
Eagh,  Fearn,  Gath,  Huath,  logh,  Luis, 
Muin,  Nuin,  Oir,  Peith,   Ruis,  Suil,  Teine, 

Ur which,  again,  is  equivalent  to  saying 

Elm,  Birch,  Hazel,  Oak,  Aspen,  Alder,  Ivy, 
Whitethorn,  Yew,  Rowan  or  Quicken,  Vine, 
Ash,  Spindle-tree,  Pine,  Elder,  Willow,  Furze, 
Heath. 

The  little  girl  who  knew  so  much  about 
Shanny  knew  nothing  but  of  her  own  ABC. 
But  I  owe  her  a  debt,  since  through  her  I 
came  upon  my  good  friend  "  Gunainm." 
From  her  I  heard  first,  there  on  lona,  on  a 
chance  visit  of  a  few  summer  days,  of  two  of 
the  most  beautiful  of  the  ancient  Gaelic 
hymns,  the  Fiacc  Hymn  and  the  Hymn  of 
Broccan.  My  friend  had  delineated  them 
as  missals,  with  a  strangely  beautiful  design 
to  each.  How  often  I  have  thought  of  one, 
illustrative  of  a  line  in  the  Fiacc  Hymn : 
"  There  was  pagan  darkness  in  Eire  in  those 
days :    the  people  adored  Faerie."     In  the 

8 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

Broccan  Hymn  (composed  by  one  Broccan 
in  the  time  of  Lugaid,  son  of  Loegaire,  a.  d. 
500)  is  one  particularly  lovely  line  :  "  Victo- 
rious Bride  (Bridget)  loved  not  this  vain 
world :  here,  ever,  she  sat  the  seat  of  a  bird 
on  a  cliff." 

In  a  dream  I  dream  frequently,  that  of 
being  the  wind,  and  drifting  over  fragrant 
hedgerows  and  pastures,  I  have  often, 
through  unconscious  remembrance  of  that 
image  of  St.  Bride  sitting  the  seat  of  a  bird 
on  the  edge  of  the  cliff  that  is  this  world, 
felt  myself,  when  not  lifted  on  sudden  warm 
fans  of  dusk,  propelled  as  on  a  swift  wing 
from  the  edge  of  a  precipice. 

I  would  that  we  had  these  winds  of  dream 
to  command.  I  would,  now  that  I  am  far 
from  it,  that  this  night  at  least  I  might  pass 
over  lona,  and  hear  the  sea-doves  by  the 
ruins  making  their  sweet  mournful  croon  of 
peace,  and  lift,  as  a  shadow  gathering  phan- 
tom flowers,  the  pale  orchis  by  the  lapwing's 
nest. 

II 

As  a  child  I  had  some  wise  as  well  as 
foolish  instruction  concerning  the  nations  of 
Faerie.  If,  in  common  with  nearly  all  happy 
children,  I  was  brought  up  in  intimate,  even 
in  circumstantial,  knowledge  of  "  the  fairies  " 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

—  being  charitably  taught,  for  one  thing,  so 
that  I  have  often  left  a  little  bowl  of  milk,  a 
saucerful  of  oatcake  and  honey,  and  the  like, 
under  a  wooden  seat,  where  they  would  be 
sure  to  see  it  —  I  was  told  also  of  the  Sidhe, 
often  so  rashly  and  ignorantly  alluded  to  as 
the  fairies  in  the  sense  of  a  pretty,  diminu- 
tive, harmless,  natural  folk  ;  and  by  my  nurse 
Barabal  instructed  in  some  of  the  ways, 
spells,  influences,  and  even  appearances  of 
these  powerful  and  mysterious  clans. 

I  do  not  think,  unless  as  a  very  young 
child,  I  ever  confused  them,  I  recollect  well 
my  pleasure  at  a  sign  of  gratitude.  I  was 
fond  of  making  little  reed  or  bulrush  or  ash 
flutes,  but  once  I  was  in  a  place  where  these 
were  difficult  to  get,  and  I  lost  the  only  one  I 
had.  That  night  I  put  aside  a  small  portion 
of  my  supper  of  bread  and  milk  and  honey, 
and  remember  also  the  sacrifice  of  a  goose- 
berry of  noble  proportions,  relinquished,  not 
without  a  sigh,  in  favour  of  any  wandering 
fairy  lad. 

Next  morning  when  I  ran  out  —  three  of 
us  then  had  a  wild  morning  performance  we 
called  some  fantastic,  forgotten  name,  and 
ourselves  the  Sun-dancers  —  I  saw  by  the 
emptied  saucer  my  little  reed-flute  I  Here 
was  proof  positive  1  I  was  so  grateful  for 
that  fairy's  gratitude,  that  when  dusk  came 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

again  I  not  only  left  a  larger  supper-dole 
than  usual,  but,  decked  with  white  foxglove 
bells  (in  which  I  had  unbounded  faith),  sat 
drenched  in  the  dew  and  played  my  little 
reed.  Any  moment  (I  was  sure)  a  small  green 
fellow  would  appear,  and  with  wild  indigna- 
tion I  found  myself  snatched  from  the  grass, 
and  my  ears  dinned  now  with  reproaches 
about  the  dew,  now  with  remonstrances 
against  "  that  frightfu'  reed-screeching  that 
scared  awa'  the  varry  hens." 

Ah,  there  are  souls  that  know  nothing  of 
fairies,  or  music  1 

III 

But  the  Sidhe  are  a  very  different  people 
from  the  small  clans  of  the  earth's  delight. 

However  (though  I  could  write  of  both  a 
great  volume),  I  have  little  to  say  of  either 
just  now,  except  in  one  connection. 

It  is  commonly  said  that  the  People  of 
the  Sidhe  dwell  within  the  hills,  or  in  the 
underworld.  In  some  of  the  isles  their 
home,  now,  is  spoken  of  as  Tir-na-thonn, 
the  Land  of  the  Wave,  or  Tir-fo-Tuinn,  the 
Land  under  the  Sea. 

But  from  a  friend,  an  islander  of  lona,  I 
have  learned  many  things,  and  among  them, 
that  the  Shee  no  longer  dwell  within  the 
inland  hills,  and  that  though  many  of  them 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

inhabit  the  lonelier  isles  of  the  west,  and 
in  particular  The  Seven  Hunters,  their 
Kingdom  is  in  the  North. 

Some  say  it  is  among  the  pathless  moun- 
tains of  Iceland.  But  my  friend  spoke  to  an 
Iceland  man,  and  he  said  he  had  never  seen 
them.  There  were  Secret  People  there,  but 
not  the  Gaelic  Sidhe. 

Their  Kingdom  is  in  the  North,  under 
the  Fir-Chlisueach,  the  Dancing  Men,  as  the 
Hebrideans  call  the  polar  aurora.  They  are 
always  young  there.  Their  bodies  are  white 
as  the  wild  swan,  their  hair  yellow  as  honey, 
their  eyes  blue  as  ice.  Their  feet  leave  no 
mark  on  the  snow.  The  women  are  white  as 
milk,  with  eyes  like  sloes,  and  lips  like  red 
rowans.  They  fight  with  shadows,  and  are 
glad ;  but  the  shadows  are  not  shadows  to 
them.  The  Shee  slay  great  numbers  at  the 
full  moon,  but  never  hunt  on  moonless 
nights,  or  at  the  rising  of  the  moon,  or  when 
the  dew  is  falling.  Their  lances  are  made 
of  reeds  that  glitter  like  shafts  of  ice,  and  it 
is  ill  for  a  mortal  to  find  one  of  these  lances, 
for  it  is  tipped  with  the  salt  of  a  wave  that 
no  living  thing  has  touched,  neither  the 
wailing  mew  nor  the  finned  sgadan  nor  his 
tribe,  nor  the  narwhal.  There  are  no  men 
of  the  human  clans  there,  and  no  shores, 
and  the  tides  are  forbidden. 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

Long  ago  one  of  the  monks  of  Columba 
sailed  thither.  He  sailed  for  thrice  seven 
days  till  he  lost  the  rocks  of  the  north ;  and 
for  thrice  thirty  days,  till  Iceland  in  the 
south  was  like  a  small  bluebell  in  a  great 
grey  plain ;  and  for  thrice  three  years  among 
bergs.  For  the  first  three  years  the  finned 
things  of  the  sea  brought  him  food;  for  the 
second  three  years  he  knew  the  kindness  of 
the  creatures  of  the  air;  in  the  last  three 
years  angels  fed  him.  He  lived  among  the 
Sidhe  for  three  hundred  years.  When  he 
came  back  to  lona,  he  was  asked  where  he 
had  been  all  that  long  night  since  evensong 
to  matins.  The  monks  had  sought  him 
everywhere,  and  at  dawn  had  found  him 
lying  in  the  hollow  of  the  long  wave  that 
washes  lona  on  the  north.  He  laughed  at 
that,  and  said  he  had  been  on  the  tops  of 
the  billows  for  nine  years  and  three  months 
and  twenty-one  days,  and  for  three  hundred 
years  had  lived  among  a  deathless  people. 
He  had  drunk  sweet  ale  every  day,  and  every 
day  had  known  love  among  flowers  and  green 
bushes,  and  at  dusk  had  sung  old  beautiful 
forgotten  songs,  and  with  star-flame  had  lit 
strange  fires,  and  at  the  full  of  the  moon  had 
gone  forth  laughing  to  slay.  It  was  heaven, 
there,  under  the  Lights  of  the  North.  When 
he  was  asked  how  that  people  might   be 


13 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

known,  he  said  that  away  from  there  they 
had  a  cold,  cold  hand,  a  cold,  still  voice,  and 
cold  ice-blue  eyes.  They  had  four  cities  at 
the  four  ends  of  the  green  diamond  that  is 
the  world.  That  in  the  north  was  made  of 
earth ;  that  in  the  east,  of  air ;  that  in  the 
south,  of  fire ;  that  in  the  west,  of  water.  In 
the  middle  of  the  green  diamond  that  is  the 
world  is  the  Glen  of  Precious  Stones.  It  is 
in  the  shape  of  a  heart,  and  glows  like  a 
ruby,  though  all  stones  and  gems  are  there. 
It  is  there  the  Sidhe  go  to  refresh  their 
deathless  life. 

The  holy  monks  said  that  this  kingdom 
was  certainly  Ifurin,  the  Gaelic  Hell.  So 
they  put  their  comrade  alive  in  a  grave  in 
the  sand,  and  stamped  the  sand  down  upon 
his  head,  and  sang  hymns  so  that  mayhap 
even  yet  his  soul  might  be  saved,  or,  at  least, 
that  when  he  went  back  to  that  place  he 
might  remember  other  songs  than  those  sung 
by  the  milk-white  women  with  eyes  like  sloes 
and  lips  red  as  rowans.  "  Tell  that  honey- 
mouthed cruel  people  they  are  in  Hell,"  said 
the  abbot,  "  and  give  them  my  ban  and  my 
curse  unless  they  will  cease  laughing  and 
loving  sinfully  and  slaying  with  bright  lances, 
and  will  come  out  of  their  secret  places  and 
be  baptized." 

They  have  not  yet  come. 


H 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

This  adventure  of  the  dreaming  mind  is 
another  Oran,  that  fabulous  Oran  of  whom 
the  later  Columban  legends  tell.  I  think  that 
other  Orans  go  out,  even  yet,  to  the  Country 
of  the  Sidhe.  But  few  come  again.  It  must 
be  hard  to  find  that  glen  at  the  heart  of  the 
green  diamond  that  is  the  world ;  but,  when 
found,  harder  to  return  by  the  way  one  came. 

IV 

In  the  FHire  na  Naomk  Nerennnch  is  a 
strangely  beautiful  if  fantastic  legend  of 
one  Mochaoi,  Abbot  of  n'-Aondruim  in 
Uladh.  With  some  companions  he  was  at 
the  edge  of  a  wood,  and  while  busy  in  cut- 
ting wattles  wherewith  to  build  a  church, 
"he  heard  a  bright  bird  singing  on  the 
blackthorn  near  him.  It  was  more  beautiful 
than  the  birds  of  the  w^orld."  Mochaoi 
listened  entranced.  There  was  more  in  that 
voice  than  in  the  throat  of  any  bird  he  had 
ever  heard,  so  he  stopped  his  wattle-cutting, 
and,  looking  at  the  bird,  courteously  asked 
who  was  thus  delighting  him.  The  bird  at 
once  answered,  "A  man  of  the  people  of 
my  Lord  "  (that  is,  an  angel).  "  Hail,"  said 
Mochaoi,  "  and  for  why  that,  O  bird  that  is 
an  angel  ?  "  "I  am  come  here  by  command 
to  encourage  you  in  your  good  work,  but 
also,  because  of  the  love  in  your  heart,  to 


IS 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

amuse  you  for  a  time  with  my  sweet  singing." 
"  I  am  glad  of  that,"  said  the  saint.  There- 
upon the  bird  sang  a  single  surpassing  sweet 
air,  and  then  fixed  his  beak  in  the  feathers  of 
his  wing,  and  slept.  But  Mochaoi  heard  the 
beauty  and  sweetness  and  infinite  range  of 
that  song  for  three  hundred  years.  Three 
hundred  years  were  in  that  angelic  song,  but 
to  Mochaoi  it  was  less  than  a  hour.  For  three 
hundred  years  he  remained  listening,  in  the 
spell  of  beauty :  nor  in  that  enchanted  hour 
did  any  age  come  upon  him,  or  any  withering 
upon  the  wattles  he  had  gathered;  nor  in 
the  wood  itself  did  a  single  leaf  turn  to  a  red 
or  yellow  flame  before  his  eyes.  Where  the 
spider  spun  her  web,  she  spun  no  more: 
where  the  dove  leaned  her  grey  breast  from 
the  fir,  she  leaned  still. 

Then  suddenly  the  bird  took  its  beak  from 
its  wing-feathers,  and  said  farewell.  When 
it  was  gone,  Mochaoi  lifted  his  wattles,  and 
went  homeward  as  one  in  a  dream.  He 
stared,  when  he  looked  for  the  little  wattled 
cells  of  the  Sons  of  Patrick.  A  great  church 
built  of  stone  stood  before  his  wondering 
eyes.  A  man  passed  him,  and  told  the 
stranger  that  it  was  the  church  of  St. 
Mochaoi.  When  he  spoke  to  the  assembled 
brothers,  none  knew  him :  some  thought  he 
had  been  taken  away  by  the  people  of  the 

i6 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

Shee,  and  come  back  at  fairy-nightfall,  which 
is  the  last  hour  of  the  last  day  of  three 
hundred  years.  "  Tell  us  your  name  and 
lineage,"  they  cried.  "  I  am  Mochaoi,  Abbot 
of  n'-Aondruim,"  he  said,  and  then  he  told 
his  tale,  and  they  knew  him,  and  made  him 
abbot  again.  In  the  enchanted  wood  a  shrine 
was  built,  and  about  it  a  church  grew,  "  and 
surpassingly  white  angels  often  alighted 
there,  or  sang  hymns  to  it  from  the  branches 
of  the  forest  trees,  or  leaned  with  their  foot 
on  tiptoe,  their  eyes  on  the  horizon,  their  ear 
on  the  ground,  their  wings  flapping,  their 
bodies  trembling,  waiting  to  send  tidings  of 
prayer  and  repentance  with  a  beat  of  their 
wings  to  the  King  of  the  Everlasting." 

There  vrere  many  who  thought  that 
Mochaoi  was  dead,  when  he  was  seen  no 
more  of  his  fellow-monks  at  the  forest- 
monastery  of  n'-Aondruim  in  Uladh.  But  his 
chronicler  knew :  "  a  sleep  without  decay  of 
the  body  Mochaoi  of  Antrim  slept." 

I  am  reminded  of  the  story  of  Mochaoi 
when  I  think  of  lona.  I  think  she  too, 
beautiful  isle,  while  gathering  the  kelp  of 
human  longings  and  tears  and  hopes,  strewn 
upon  her  beaches  by  wild  waves  of  the  world, 
stood,  enchanted,  to  listen  to  a  Song  of 
Beauty.  "  That  is  a  new  voice  I  hear  in  the 
wave,"  we  can  dream  of  her  saying,  and  of 


17 


THE   ISLE  OF   DREAMS 

the  answer:  "we  are  the  angelical  flocks 
of  the  Shepherd :  we  are  the  Voices  of  the 
Eternal :  listen  a  while  1 " 

It  has  been  a  long  sleep,  that  enchanted 
swoon.  But  Mochaoi  awoke,  after  three 
hundred  years,  and  there  was  neither  time 
upon  his  head,  nor  age  in  his  body,  nor  a 
single  withered  leaf  of  the  forest  at  his  feet. 
And  shall  not  that  be  possible  for  the  Isle  of 
Dreams,  whose  sands  are  the  dust  of  martyrs 
and  noble  and  beautiful  lives,  which  was 
granted  to  one  man  by  "  one  of  the  people 
of  my  lord  ?  " 

V 

When  I  think  of  lona  I  think  often,  too, 
of  a  prophecy  once  connected  with  lona; 
though  perhaps  current  no  more  in  a  day 
when  prophetical  hopes  are  fallen  dumb  and 
blind. 

It  is  commonly  said  that,  if  he  would  be 
heard,  none  should  write  in  advance  of  his 
times.  That  I  do  not  believe.  Only,  it  does 
not  matter  how  few  listen.  I  believe  that  we 
are  close  upon  a  great  and  deep  spiritual 
change.  I  believe  a  new  redemption  is  even 
now  conceived  of  the  Divine  Spirit  in  the 
human  heart,  that  is  itself  as  a  woman, 
broken  in  dreams  and  yet  sustained  in  faith, 
patient,  long-suffering,  looking  towards  home. 

i8 


THE    ISLE   OF   DREAMS 

I  believe  that  though  the  Reign  of  Peace 
may  be  yet  a  long  way  off,  it  is  drawing 
near :  and  that  Who  shall  save  us  anew  shall 
come  divinely  as  a  Woman,  to  save  as  Christ 
saved,  but  not,  as  He  did,  to  bring  with  Her 
a  sword.  But  whether  this  Divine  Woman, 
this  Mary  of  so  many  passionate  hopes  and 
dreams,  is  to  come  through  mortal  birth,  or 
as  an  immortal  Breathing  upon  our  souls, 
none  can  yet  know. 

Sometimes  I  dream  of  the  old  prophecy 
that  Christ  shall  come  again  upon  lona,  and 
of  that  later  and  obscure  prophecy  which 
foretells,  now  as  the  Bride  of  Christ,  now  as 
the  Daughter  of  God,  now  as  the  Divine 
Spirit  embodied  through  mortal  birth  in  a 
Woman,  as  once  through  mortal  birth  in 
a  Man,  the  coming  of  a  new  Presence  and 
Power:  and  dream  that  this  may  be  upon 
lona,  so  that  the  little  Gaelic  island  may 
become  as  the  little  Syrian  Bethlehem.  But 
more  wise  it  is  to  dream,  not  of  hallowed 
ground,  but  of  the  hallowed  gardens  of  the 
soul  wherein  She  shall  appear  white  and 
radiant.  Or,  that  upon  the  hills,  where  we 
are  wandered,  the  Shepherdess  shall  call  us 
home. 

From  one  man  only,  on  lona  itself,  I  have 
heard  any  allusion  to  the  prophecy  as  to  the 
Saviour  who  shall  yet  come  :  and  he  in  part 


19 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

was  obscure,  and  confused  the  advent  of 
Mary  into  the  spiritual  world  with  the  possi- 
ble coming  again  to  earth  of  Mary,  as  another 
Redeemer,  or  with  a  descending  of  the  Divine 
Womanhood  upon  the  human  heart  as  an 
universal  spirit  descending  upon  awaiting 
souls.  But  in  intimate  remembrance  I  recall 
the  words  and  faith  of  one  or  two  whom  I 
loved  well.  Nor  must  I  forget  that  my  old 
nurse,  Barabal,  used  to  sing  a  strange  "  oran," 
to  the  effect  that  when  St.  Bride  came  again 
to  lona  it  would  be  to  bind  the  hair  and 
wash  the  feet  of  the  Bride  of  Christ. 

One  of  those  to  whom  I  allude  was  a 
young  Hebridean  priest,  who  died  in  Venice, 
after  troubled  years,  whose  bitterest  vicissi- 
tude was  the  clouding  of  his  soul's  hope  by 
the  wings  of  a  strange  multitude  of  dreams 
—  one  of  whom  and  whose  end  I  have  else- 
where written :  and  he  told  me  once  how, 
"  as  our  forefathers  and  elders  believed  and 
still  believe,  that  Holy  Spirit  shall  come 
again  which  once  was  mortally  bom  among 
us  as  the  Son  of  God,  but,  then,  shall  be  the 
Daughter  of  God.  The  Divine  Spirit  shall 
come  again  as  a  Woman.  Then  for  the  first 
time  the  world  will  know  peace."  And  when 
I  asked  him  if  it  were  not  prophesied  that 
the  Woman  is  to  be  bom  in  lona,  he  said 
that  if  this  prophecy  had  been  made  it  was 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

doubtless  of  an  lona  that  was  symbolic,  but 
that  this  was  a  matter  of  no  moment,  for 
She  would  rise  suddenly  in  many  hearts,  and 
have  her  habitation  among  dreams  and  hopes. 
The  other  who  spoke  to  me  of  this  Woman 
who  is  to  save  was  an  old  fisherman  of  a 
remote  island  of  the  Hebrides,  and  one  to 
whom  I  owe  more  than  to  any  other  spiritual 
influence  in  my  childhood,  for  it  was  he  who 
opened  to  me  the  three  gates  of  Beauty. 
Once  this  old  man,  Seumas  Macleod,  took 
me  with  him  to  a  lonely  haven  in  the  rocks, 
and  held  me  on  his  knee  as  we  sat  watching 
the  sun  sink  and  the  moon  climb  out  of  the 
eastern  wave.  I  saw  no  one,  but  abruptly  he 
rose  and  put  me  from  him,  and  bowed  his 
grey  head  as  he  knelt  before  one  who  sud- 
denly was  standing  in  that  place.  I  asked 
eagerly  who  it  was.  He  told  me  that  it  was 
an  Angel.  Later,  I  learned  (I  remember  my 
disappointment  that  the  beautiful  vision  was 
not  winged  with  great  white  wings)  that  the 
Angel  was  one  soft  flame  of  pure  white,  and 
that  below  the  soles  of  his  feet  were  curling 
scarlet  flames.  He  had  come  in  answer  to 
the  old  man's  prayer.  He  had  come  to  say 
that  we  could  not  see  the  Divine  One  whom 
we  awaited.  "  But  you  will  yet  see  that 
Holy  Beauty,"  said  the  Angel,  and  Seumas 
believed,  and  I  too  believed,  and  believe. 


THE   ISLE  OF   DREAMS 

He  took  my  hand,  and  I  knelt  beside  him, 
and  he  bade  me  repeat  the  words  he  said. 
And  that  was  how  I  first  prayed  to  Her  who 
shall  yet  be  the  Balm  of  the  World. 

And  since  then  I  have  learned,  and  do 
see,  that  not  only  prophecies  and  hopes,  and 
desires  unclothed  yet  in  word  or  thought, 
foretell  Her  coming,  but  already  a  multitude 
of  spirits  are  in  the  gardens  of  the  soul, 
and  are  sowing  seed  and  calling  upon  the 
wind  of  the  south ;  and  that  everywhere  are 
watching  eyes  and  uplifted  hands,  and  signs 
which  cannot  be  mistaken,  in  many  lands, 
in  many  peoples,  in  many  minds;  and,  in 
the  heaven  itself  that  the  soul  sees,  the 
surpassing  signature. 


VI 


I  recall  one  whom  I  knew,  a  fisherman  of 
the  little  green  island :  and  I  tell  this  story 
of  Coll  here,  for  it  is  to  me  more  than  the 
story  of  a  dreaming  islander.  One  night, 
lying  upon  the  hillock  that  is  called  Cnoc- 
nan-Aingeal,  because  it  is  here  that  St.  Colum 
was  wont  to  hold  converse  with  an  angel  out 
of  heaven,  he  watched  the  moonlight  move 
like  a  slow  fin  through  the  sea :  and  in  his 
heart  were  desires  as  infinite  as  the  waves  of 
the  sea,  the  moving  homes  of  the  dead. 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

And  while  he  lay  and  dreamed,  his  thoughts 
idly  adrift  as  a  net  in  deep  waters,  he  closed 
his  eyes,  muttering  the  Gaelic  words  of  an 
old  line 
In  the  Isle  of  Dreams  God  shall  yet  fulfil 

Himself  anew. 
Hearing  a  footfall,  he  stirred.  A  man  stood 
beside  him.  He  did  not  know  the  man,  who 
was  young,  and  had  eyes  dark  as  hill-tarns, 
with  hair  light  and  soft  as  thistledown ;  and 
moved  light  as  a  shadow,  delicately  treading 
the  grass  as  the  wind  treads  it.  In  his  hair 
he  had  twined  the  fantastic  leaf  of  the  horn- 
poppy. 

The  islander  did  not  move  or  speak :  it 
was  as  though  a  spell  were  upon  him. 

"  God  be  with  you,"  he  said  at  last,  utter- 
ing the  common  salutation. 

"  And  with  you.  Coll  mac  Coll,"  answered 
the  stranger.  Coll  looked  at  him.  Who 
was  this  man,  with  the  sea-poppy  in  his  hair, 
who,  unknown,  knew  him  by  name  ?  He 
had  heard  of  one  whom  he  did  not  wish  to 
meet,  the  Green  Harper:  also  of  a  grey  man 
of  the  sea  whom  islesmen  seldom  alluded 
to  by  name:  again,  there  was  the  Amadan 
Dhu  .  .  .  but  at  that  name  Coll  made  the 
sign  of  the  cross,  and  remembering  what 
Father  Allan  had  told  him  in  South  Uist, 
muttered  a  holy  exorcism  of  the  Trinity. 


23 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

The  man  smiled. 

"  You  need  have  no  fear,  Coll  mac  Coll," 
he  said  quietly. 

"  You  that  know  my  name  so  well  are 
welcome,  but  if  ycu  in  turn  would  tell  me 
your  name  I  should  be  glad." 

"  I  have  no  name  that  I  can  tell  you," 
answered  the  stranger  gravely;  "but  I  am 
not  of  those  who  are  unfriendly.  And 
because  you  can  see  me  and  speak  to  me,  I 
will  help  you  to  whatsoever  you  may  wish." 

Coll  laughed. 

"  Neither  you  nor  any  man  can  do  that. 
For  now  that  I  have  neither  father  nor 
mother,  nor  brother  nor  sister,  and  my  lass 
too  is  dead,  I  wish  neither  for  sheep  nor 
cattle,  nor  for  new  nets  and  a  fine  boat,  nor  a 
big  house,  nor  as  much  money  as  MacCailein 
Mor  has  in  the  bank  at  Inveraora." 

"  What  then  do  you  wish  for.  Coll  mac 
Coll  ? " 

"  I  do  not  wish  for  what  cannot  be,  or  I 
would  wish  to  see  again  the  dear  face  of 
Morag,  my  lass.  But  I  wish  for  all  the  glory 
and  wonder  and  power  there  is  in  the  world, 
and  to  have  it  all  at  my  feet,  and  to  know 
everything  that  the  Holy  Father  himself 
knows,  and  have  kings  coming  to  me  as  the 
crofters  come  to  MacCailein  Mor's  factor." 

"  You  can  have  that,  Coll  mac  Coll,"  said 


24 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

the  Green  Harper,  and  he  waved  a  withe  of 
hazel  he  had  in  his  hand. 

"  What  is  that  for  ? "  said  Coll. 

"  It  is  to  open  a  door  that  is  in  the  air. 
And  now,  Coll,  if  that  is  your  wish  of  all 
wishes,  and  you  will  give  up  all  other  wishes 
for  that  wish,  you  can  have  the  sovereignty 
of  the  world.  Ay,  and  more  than  that :  you 
shall  have  the  sun  like  a  golden  jewel  in  the 
hollow  of  your  right  hand,  and  all  the  stars 
as  pearls  in  your  left,  and  have  the  moon  as 
a  white  shining  opal  above  your  brows,  with 
all  knowledge  behind  the  sun,  within  the 
moon,  and  beyond  the  stars." 

Coil's  face  shone.  He  stood,  waiting. 
Just  then  he  heard  a  familiar  sound  in  the 
dusk.     The  tears  came  into  his  eyes. 

"  Give  me  instead,"  he  cried,  "  give  me  a 
warm  breast-feather  from  that  grey  dove  of 
the  woods  that  is  winging  home  to  her 
young."  He  looked  as  one  moon-dazed. 
None  stood  beside  him.  He  was  alone. 
Was  it  a  dream,  he  wondered  ?  But  a 
weight  was  lifted  from  his  heart.  Peace  fell 
upon  him  as  dew  upon  grey  pastures.  Slowly 
he  walked  homeward.  Once,  glancing  back, 
he  saw  a  white  figure  upon  the  knoll,  with 
a  face  noble  and  beautiful.  Was  it  Colum 
himself  come  again  ?  he  mused :  or  that 
white  angel  with  whom  the  Saint  was  wont 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

to  discourse,  and  who  brought  him  intimacies 
of  God  ?  or  was  it  but  the  wave-fire  of  his 
dreaming  mind,  as  lonely  and  cold  and  unreal 
as  that  which  the  wind  of  the  south  makes 
upon  the  wandering  hearths  of  the  sea  ? 

I  tell  this  story  of  Coll  here,  for,  as  I  have 
said,  it  is  to  me  more  than  the  story  of  a 
dreaming  islander.  He  stands  for  the  soul 
of  a  race.  It  is  because,  to  me,  he  stands 
for  the  sorrowful  genius  of  our  race,  that  I 
have  spoken  of  him  here.  Below  all  the 
strife  of  lesser  desires,  below  all  that  he  has 
in  common  with  other  men,  he  has  the  live- 
long unquenchable  thirst  for  the  things  of 
the  spirit.  This  is  the  thirst  that  makes  him 
turn  so  often  from  the  near  securities  and 
prosperities,  and  indeed  all  beside,  setting  his 
heart  aflame  with  vain,  because  illimitable, 
desires.  For  him,  the  wisdom  before  which 
knowledge  is  a  frosty  breath :  the  beauty 
that  is  beyond  what  is  beautiful.  For,  like 
Coll,  the  world  itself  has  not  enough  to  give 
him.  And  at  the  last,  and  above  all,  he  is 
like  Coll  in  this,  that  the  sun  and  moon  and 
stars  themselves  may  become  as  trampled 
dust,  for  only  a  breast-feather  of  that  Dove 
of  the  Eternal,  which  may  have  its  birth  in 
mortal  love,  but  has  its  evening  home  where 
are  the  dews  of  immortality. 


26 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 


VII 


"The  Dove  of  the  Eternal."  It  was  from 
the  lips  of  an  old  priest  of  the  Hebrides  that 
I  first  heard  these  words.  I  was  a  child,  and 
asked  him  if  it  was  a  white  dove,  such  as  I 
had  seen  fanning  the  sunglow  in  Icolmkill. 

"  Yes,"  he  told  me,  "  the  Dove  is  white, 
and  it  was  beloved  of  Colum,  and  is  of  you, 
little  one,  and  of  me." 

"  Then  it  is  not  dead  .'  " 

"  It  is  not  dead." 

I  was  in  a  more  wild  and  rocky  isle  than 
lona  then,  and  when  I  went  into  a  solitary 
place  close  by  my  home  it  was  to  a  stony 
wilderness  so  desolate  that  in  many  moods 
I  could  not  bear  it.  But  that  day,  though 
there  were  no  sheep  lying  beside  boulders  as 
grey  and  still,  nor  whinnying  goats  (creatures 
that  have  always  seemed  to  me  strangely 
homeless,  so  that,  as  a  child,  it  was  often  my 
noon-fancy  on  hot  days  to  play  to  them  on 
a  little  reed-flute  I  was  skilled  in  making, 
thwarting  the  hill-wind  at  the  small  holes  to 
the  fashioning  of  a  rude  furtive  music,  which 
I  believed  comforted  the  goats,  though  why  I 
did  not  know,  and  probably  did  not  try  to 
know) :  and  though  I  could  hear  nothing 
but  the  soft,  swift,  slipping  feet  of  the  wind 
among  rocks  and  grass  and  a  noise  of  the 


27 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

tide  crawling  up  from  a  sliore  hidden  behind 
crags  (beloved  of  swallows  for  the  small 
honey-flies  which  fed  upon  the  thyme) :  still, 
on  that  day,  I  was  not  ill  at  ease,  nor  in  any 
way  disquieted.  But  before  me  I  saw  a 
white  rock-dove,  and  followed  it  gladly.  It 
flew  circling  among  the  crags,  and  once  I 
thought  it  had  passed  seaward ;  but  it  came 
again,  and  alit  on  a  boulder. 

I  went  upon  my  knees,  and  prayed  to  it, 
and,  as  nearly  as  I  can  remember,  in  these 
words  :  — 

"O  Dove  of  the  Eternal,  I  want  to  love 
you,  and  you  to  love  me :  and  if  you  live  on 
lona,  I  want  you  to  show  me,  when  I  go 
there  again,  the  place  where  Colum  the  Holy 
talked  with  an  angel.  And  I  want  to  Uve 
as  long  as  you.  Dove  "  (I  remember  thinking 
this  might  seem  disrespectful,  and  that  I 
added  hurriedly  and  apologetically),  "  Dove 
of  the  Eternal." 

That  evening  I  told  Father  Ivor  what  I 
had  done.  He  did  not  laugh  at  me.  He 
took  me  on  his  knee,  and  stroked  my  hair, 
and  for  a  long  time  was  so  silent  that  I 
thought  he  was  dreaming.  He  put  me 
gently  from  him,  and  kneeled  at  the  chair, 
and  made  this  simple  prayer  which  I  have 
never  forgotten :  "  O  Dove  of  the  Eternal, 
grant  the  little  one's  prayer." 

28 


THE    ISLE    UK    DREAMS 

That  is  a  long  while  ago  now,  and  I  have 
sojourned  since  in  lona,  and  there  and  else- 
where known  the  wild  doves  of  thought  and 
dream.  But  I  have  not,  though  I  have 
longed,  seen  again  the  White  Dove  that 
Colum  so  loved.  For  long  I  thought  it 
must  have  left  lona  and  Barra  too,  when 
Father  Ivor  died. 

Yet  I  have  not  forgotten  that  it  is  not 
dead.  "  I  want  to  live  as  long  as  you,"  was 
my  child's  plea :  and  the  words  of  the  old 
priest,  knowing  and  believing  were,  "  O 
Dove  of  the  Eternal,  grant  the  little  one's 
prayer." 

VIII 

It  was  not  in  Barra,  but  in  lona,  that, 
while  yet  a  child,  I  set  out  one  evening  to 
find  the  Divine  Forges.  A  Gaelic  sermon, 
preached  on  the  shoreside  by  an  earnest  man, 
who,  going  poor  and  homeless  through  the 
west,  had  tramped  the  long  roads  of  Mull 
overagainst  us,  and  there  fed  to  flame  a 
smouldering  fire,  had  been  my  ministrant  in 
these  words.  The  "  revivalist  "  had  spoken 
of  God  as  one  who  would  hammer  the  evil 
out  of  the  soul  and  weld  it  to  good,  as  a 
blacksmith  at  his  anvil :  and  suddenly,  with 
a  dramatic  gesture,  he  cried  :  "  This  little 
island  of  lona  is  this  anvil;  God  is  your 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

blacksmith  :  but  oh,  poor  people,  who  among 
you  knows  the  narrow  way  to  the  Divine 
Forges  ? " 

There  is  a  spot  on  lona  that  has  always 
had  a  strange  enchantment  for  me.  Behind 
the  ruined  walls  of  the  Columban  church, 
the  slopes  rise,  and  the  one  isolated  hill  of 
lona  is,  there,  a  steep  and  sudden  wilderness. 
It  is  commonly  called  Dun-I  (Dooti-ee),  for 
at  the  summit  in  old  days  was  an  island  fort- 
ress; but  the  Gaelic  name  of  the  whole  of 
this  uplifted  shoulder  of  the  isle  is  Slibh 
Meanach.  Hidden  under  a  wave  of  heath 
and  boulder,  near  the  broken  rocks,  is  a  little 
pool.  From  generation  to  generation  this  has 
been  known, and  frequented,  as  the  Fountain 
of  Youth. 

There,  through  boggy  pastures,  where  the 
huge-horned  shaggy  cattle  stared  at  me,  and 
up  through  the  ling  and  roitch,  I  cUmbed: 
for,  if  anywhere,  I  thought  that  from  there 
I  might  see  the  Divine  Forges,  or  at  least 
might  discover  a  hidden  way,  because  of  the 
power  of  that  water,  touched  on  the  eyelids 
at  sunlift,  at  sunset,  or  at  the  rising  of  the 
moon. 

From  where  I  stood  I  could  see  the  people 
still  gathered  upon  the  dunes  by  the  shore, 
and  the  tall,  ungainly  figure  of  the  preacher. 
In  the  narrow  strait  were  two  boats,  one 


3° 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

being  rowed  across  to  Fionnaphort,  and  the 
other,  with  a  dun  sail  burning  flame-brown, 
hanging  like  a  bird's  wing  against  Glas 
Eilean,  on  the  tideway  to  the  promontory 
of  Earraid.  Was  the  preacher  still  talking  of 
the  Divine  Forges  ?  I  wondered ;  or  were 
the  men  and  women  in  the  ferry  hurrying 
across  to  the  Ross  of  Mull  to  look  for  them 
among  the  inland  hills?  And  the  Earraid 
men  in  the  fishing-smack  :  were  they  sailing 
to  see  if  they  lay  hidden  in  the  wilderness  of 
rocks,  where  the  muffled  barking  of  the  seals 
made  the  loneliness  more  wild  and  remote  ? 
I  wetted  my  eyelids,  as  I  had  so  often 
done  before  (and  not  always  vainly,  though 
whether  vision  came  from  the  water,  or  from 
a  more  quenchless  spring  within,  I  know 
not),  and  looked  into  the  little  pool.  Alas ! 
I  could  see  nothing  but  the  reflection  of  a 
star,  too  obscured  by  light  as  yet  for  me  to 
see  in  the  sky,  and,  for  a  moment,  the  shadow 
of  a  gull's  wing  as  the  bird  flew  by  far  over- 
head. I  was  too  young  then  to  be  content 
with  the  symbols  of  coincidence,  or  I  might 
have  thought  that  the  shadow  of  a  wing 
from  Heaven,  and  the  light  of  a  star  out  of 
the  East,  were  enough  indication.  But,  as  it 
was,  I  turned,  and  w-alked  idly  northward, 
down  the  rough  side  of  Dun  Bhuirg  (at  Cul 
Bhuirg,  a  furlong  westward,  I  had  once  seen 


31 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

a  phantom,  which  I  believed  to  be  that  of  the 
Culdee,  Oran,  and  so  never  went  that  way 
again  after  sundown)  to  a  thyme-covered 
mound  that  had  for  me  a  most  singular 
fascination. 

It  is  a  place  to  this  day  called  Dun  Mana- 
nain.  Here,  a  friend  who  told  me  many 
things,  a  Gaelic  farmer  named  Macarthur, 
had  related  once  a  fantastic  legend  about  a 
god  of  the  sea.  Manaun  was  his  name,  and 
he  lived  in  the  times  when  lona  was  part 
of  the  kingdom  of  the  Suderoer.  Whenever 
he  willed  he  was  like  the  sea,  and  that  is  not 
wonderful,  for  he  was  bom  of  the  sea.  Thus 
his  body  was  made  of  a  green  wave.  His 
hair  was  of  wrack  and  tangle,  glistening  with 
spray ;  his  robe  was  of  windy  foam ;  his  feet, 
of  white  sand.  That  is,  when  he  was  with 
his  own,  or  when  he  willed ;  otherwise,  he 
was  as  men  are.  He  loved  a  woman  of  the 
south  so  beautiful  that  she  was  named  Dear- 
sadh-na-Ghreine  (Sunshine).  He  captured 
her  and  brought  her  to  lona  in  September, 
when  it  is  the  month  of  peace.  For  one 
month  she  was  happy :  when  the  wet  gales 
from  the  west  set  in,  she  pined  for  her  own 
land :  yet  in  the  dream-days  of  November, 
she  smiled  so  often  that  Manaun  hoped ;  but 
when  Winter  was  come,  her  lover  saw  that 
she  could  not  live.     So  he  changed  her  into 


32 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

a  seal.  "  You  shall  be  a  sleeping  woman  by 
day,"  he  said,  "and  sleep  in  my  diin  here  on 
lona :  and  by  night,  when  the  dews  fall,  you 
shall  be  a  seal,  and  shall  hear  me  calling  to 
you  from  a  wave,  and  shall  come  out  and 
meet  me." 

They  have  mortal  offspring  also,  it  is  said. 

There  is  a  story  of  a  man  who  went  to  the 
mainland,  but  could  not  see  to  plough, 
because  the  browm  fallows  became  waves 
that  splashed  noisily  about  him.  The  same 
man  went  to  Canada,  and  got  work  in  a 
great  warehouse ;  but  among  the  bales  of 
merchandise  he  heard  the  singular  note  of 
the  sandpiper,  and  every  hour  the  sea-fowl 
confused  him  with  their  crying. 

Probably  some  thought  was  in  my  mind 
that  there,  by  Dun  Mananain,  I  might  find 
a  hidden  way.  That  summer  I  had  been 
thrilled  to  the  inmost  life  by  coming  sud- 
denly, by  moonlight,  on  a  seal  moving  across 
the  last  sand-dune  between  this  place  and 
the  bay  called  Port  Ban.  A  strange  voice, 
too,  I  heard  upon  the  sea.  True,  I  saw  no 
white  arms  upthrown,  as  the  seal  plunged 
into  the  long  wave  that  swept  the  shore ; 
and  it  was  a  grey  skua  that  wailed  above  me, 
winging  inland ;  yet  had  I  not  had  a  vision 
of  the  miracle  ? 

But  alas !  that  evening  there  was  not  even 


33 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

a  barking  seal.     Some  sheep  fed  upon  the 
green  slope  of  Manaun's  mound. 

IX 

So,  still  seeking  a  way  to  the  Divine  Forges, 
I  skirted  the  shore  and  crossed  the  sandy 
plain  of  the  Machar,  and  mounted  the  upland 
district  known  as  Sliav  Starr  (the  Hill  of 
Noises),  and  walked  to  a  place,  to  me  sacred. 
This  was  a  deserted  green  airidh  between 
great  rocks.  From  here  I  could  look  across 
the  extreme  western  part  of  lona,  to  where 
it  shelved  precipitously  around  the  little 
Port-a-churaich,  the  Haven  of  the  Coracle, 
the  spot  where  St.  Columba  landed  when  he 
came  to  the  island. 

I  knew  every  foot  of  ground  here,  as  every 
cave  along  the  wave-worn  shore.  How  often 
I  had  wandered  in  these  solitudes,  to  see  the 
great  spout  of  water  rise  through  the  grass 
from  the  caverns  beneath,  forced  upward 
when  tide  and  wind  harried  the  sea-flocksf  rom 
the  north ;  or  to  look  across  the  ocean  to  the 
cliffs  of  Antrim,  from  the  Cam  cul  Ri  Eirinn, 
the  Cairn  of  the  Hermit  King  of  Ireland, 
about  whom  I  had  woven  many  a  romance. 

I  was  tired,  and  fell  asleep.  Perhaps  the 
Druid  of  a  neighbouring  mound,  or  the  lonely 
Irish  King,  or  Colum  himself  (whose  own 
Mound  of  the  Outlook  was  near),  or  one  of 


34 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

his  angels  who  ministered  to  him,  watched, 
and  shepherded  my  dreams  to  the  desired 
fold.     At  least  I  dreamed,  and  thus :  — 

The  skies  to  the  west  beyond  the  seas 
were  not  built  of  flushed  clouds,  but  of  trans- 
parent flame.  These  flames  rose  in  solemn 
stillness  above  a  vast  forge,  whose  anvil  was 
the  shining  breast  of  the  sea.  Three  great 
Spirits  stood  by  it,  and  one  lifted  a  soul  out 
of  the  deep  shadow  that  was  below  ;  and  one 
with  his  hands  forged  the  soul  of  its  dross 
and  welded  it  anew;  and  the  third  breathed 
upon  it,  so  that  it  was  winged  and  beautiful. 
Suddenly  the  glory-cloud  waned,  and  I  saw 
the  multitude  of  the  stars.  Each  star  was 
the  gate  of  a  long,  shining  road.  Many  — 
a  countless  number  —  travelled  these  roads. 
Far  off  I  saw  white  walls,  built  of  the  pale 
gold  and  ivory  of  sunrise.  There  again  I 
saw  the  three  Spirits,  standing  and  waiting. 
So  these,  I  thought,  were  not  the  walls  of 
Heaven,  but  the  Divine  Forges. 

That  was  my  dream.  When  I  awaked,  the 
curlews  were  crj'ing  under  the  stars. 

When  I  reached  the  shadowy  glebe,  behind 
the  manse  by  the  sea,  I  saw  the  preacher 
walking  there  by  himself,  and  doubtless 
praying.  I  told  him  I  had  seen  the  Divine 
Forges,  and  twice ;  and  in  crude,  childish 
words  told  how  I  had  seen  them. 


35 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

"  It  is  not  a  dream,"  he  said. 
I  know  now  what  he  meant. 

X 

In  my  childhood  I  well  recall  meeting  in 
lona  an  old  man  who  had  come  from  the 
glens  of  Antrim,  to  me  memorable  because 
he  was  the  last  Gaelic  minstrel  of  the  old 
kind  I  have  seen.  "  It  was  a  poor  land, 
Antrim,"  he  said,  "  with  no  Gaelic,  a  bitter 
lot  o'  protestantry,  and  little  music." 
I  remember,  too,  his  adding  in  effect : 
"  It  is  in  the  west  you  should  be  if  you 
want  music,  and  men  and  women  without 
coldness  or  the  hard  mouth.  In  Donegal 
and  Mayo  and  all  down  Connemara-way  to 
the  cliffs  of  Moher  you'll  hear  the  wind  an' 
the  voices  o'  the  Shee  with  never  a  man  to 
curse  the  one  or  the  other."  I  asked  him 
why  he  had  come  to  lona.  It  was  to  see 
the  isle  of  Colum,  he  said,  "  St.  Bridget's 
brother,  God  bless  the  pair  av'  thim."  He 
was  on  his  way  to  Oban,  thence  to  go  to  a 
far  place  in  the  Athole  country,  where  his 
daughter  had  married  a  factor  who  had 
returned  to  his  own  land  from  the  Irish 
west,  and  was  the  more  dear  to  the  old  man 
because  his  only  living  blood-kin,  and  because 
she  had  called  her  little  girl  by  the  name  of 

36 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

the  old  harper's  long-lost  love,  "  my  love  and 
my  wife." 

The  last  harper,  though  he  had  not  his 
harp  with  him.  He  had  come  from  Drogheda 
in  a  cattle-boat  to  Islay  (whence  he  had 
sailed  in  a  fishing-smack  to  lona),  and  his 
friend  the  mate  had  promised  to  leave  the 
harp  and  his  other  belongings  at  Oban  in 
safe  keeping.  He  had  with  him,  however, 
a  small  instrument  that  he  called  his  little 
clar.  It  was  something  between  a  guitar  and 
a  cithern,  suggestive  of  a  primitive  violin, 
and  he  played  on  it  sometimes  with  his 
fingers,  sometimes  with  a  short  bit  of  wood 
like  a  child's  tipcat;  and,  he  said,  could 
make  good  music  with  a  hazel-wand  or  "the 
dry  straight  rod  of  a  quicken  when  that's  to 
be  had."  He  said  this  quaint  instrument 
had  come  down  to  him  through  fifty-one 
generations :  literally,  "  eleven  and  twice 
twenty  sheauairean  (grandfathers,  or  elders 
or  forebears),"  of  whom  he  could  at  any 
moment  give  the  pedigree  of  ceithir  deiig  air 
yhtcht'ad,  "four  and  ten  upon  twenty"  — 
that  is,  to  translate  the  Gaelic  method  of 
enumeration,  "  thirty-four." 

This  was  at  the  house  of  a  minister  then 
lodging  in  the  island,  and  it  was  he  who 
hosted  the  old  harper.  He  told  me,  later, 
that  he  had  no  doubt  this  was  the  old-world 


37 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

cruit,  the  Welsh  crwth  of  to-day,  and  the 
once  colloquial  Lowland  "crowther,"  akin  to 
the  Roman  canora  cythara,  the  "forebear" 
of  the  modem  Spanish  guitar.  To  this  day, 
I  may  add,  Highlanders  (at  least  in  the  west) 
call  the  guitar  the  Cruit-Spcinteack.  There 
seems  to  have  been  four  kinds  of  "  harp  " 
in  the  old  days :  the  clar  or  clarsach,  the 
kairneen  (ceirnine),  the  kreemtheencrooth 
(cream-thine-cruit),  and  the  cionar  cruit. 
The  clarsach  was  the  harp  proper;  that  is, 
the  small  Celtic  harp.  The  ceirnine  was  the 
smaller  hand-harp.  The  "  creamthine  cruit " 
had  six  strings,  and  w-as  probably  used 
chiefly  at  festivals,  possibly  for  a  strong 
sonance  to  accentuate  chants;  while  the 
cionar  cruit  had  ten  strings,  and  was  played 
either  by  a  bow  or  with  a  wooden  or  other 
instrument.  It  must  have  been  a  cionar- 
cruit,  ancient  or  a  rude  later-day  imitation, 
that  the  old  harper  had. 

Poor  old  man,  I  fear  he  never  played  on 
his  harp  again ;  for  I  learned  later  that  he 
had  found  his  Athole  haven  broken  up,  and 
his  daughter  and  her  husband  about  to 
emigrate  to  Canada,  so  that  he  went  with 
them,  and  died  on  the  way  —  perhaps  as 
much  from  the  mountain-longing  and  home- 
sickness as  from  any  more  tangible  ill. 

I  have  a  double  memento  of  him  that  I 


38 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

value.  In  Islay  he  had  bought  or  been  given 
a  little  book  of  Gaelic  songs  (the  Scoto-Gaelic 
must  have  puzzled  him  sorely,  poor  old 
eirioniiach),  and  this  he  left  behind  him,  and 
my  minister  friend  gave  it  to  me,  with  much 
of  the  above  noted  down  on  its  end-pages. 
The  little  book  had  been  printed  early  in  the 
century,  and  was  called  CeilUirean  Binn  nan 
Creagan  Aosda,  literally  "  Melodious  Little 
Warblings  from  the  Aged  Rock ; "  and  it 
has  always  been  dear  to  me  because  of  one 
lovely  phrase  in  it  about  birds,  where  the 
unknown  Gaelic  singer  calls  them  "clann 
bheag'  nam  preas,"  the  small  clan  of  the 
bushes,  equivalent  in  English  to  "  the  chil- 
dren of  the  bushes."  This  occurs  in  a  lovely 
verse  — 

"  Mu'n  cuairt  do  bhruachaibli  ard  mo  glinn, 
Biodh  luba  gheuga  's  orra  blath, 
's  clann  bheag'  nam  preas  a'  tabhairst  seinn 
Do  chreagaibh  aosd  oran  graidh." 

("  Along  the  lofty  sides  of  my  glen  let  there 
be  bending  boughs  clad  in  blossom,  and  the 
children  of  the  bushes  making  the  aged 
rocks  re-echo  their  songs  of  love  " )  —  truly 
a  characteristic  Gaelic  wish,  characteristically 
expressed. 

And  though  this  that  I  am  about  to  say 
did  not  happen  on  lona,  I  may  tell  it  here, 
for  it  was  there  and  from  an  islander  I  heard 


39 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

it,  an  old  man  herding  among  the  troubled 
rocky  pastures  of  Sguir  Mor  and  Cnoc  na 
Fhiona,  in  the  south  of  that  western  part 
called  Sliav  Starr  —  one  translation  of  which 
might  be  Wuthering  Heights,  for  the  word 
can  be  rendered  wind-blustery  or  wind-noisy ; 
though  I  fancy  that  starr  is,  on  lona,  com- 
monly taken  to  mean  a  strong  coarse  grass. 
(Fhiona  here  I  take  to  be  not  the  genitive  of 
a  name,  nor  that  of  "  wine,"  but  a  misspelling 
oifiomia,  grain.) 

When  he  was  a  boy  he  was  in  the  island 
of  Barra,  he  said,  and  he  had  a  foster-brother 
called  Iain  Macneil.  Iain  was  bom  with 
music  in  his  mind,  for  though  he  was  ever  a 
poor  creature  as  a  man,  having  as  a  child 
eaten  of  the  bird's  heart,  he  could  hear  a 
power  o'  wonder  in  the  wind.'  He  had 
never  come  to  any  good  in  a  worldly  sense, 
my  old  herdsman  Micheil  said;  but  it  was 
not  from  want  of  cleverness  only,  but  because 
"he  had  enough  with  his  music."  "Poor 
man,  he  failed  in  everything  he  did  but  that 
—  and,  sure,  that  was  not  against  him,  for 
is  ann  air  an  traghadh  a  rugadh  e  —  wasn't  he 
bom  when  the  tide  was  ebbing? "     Besides, 


I  An  allusion  to  the  Hebridean  proverb,  Ma.  dh' 
itheas  tu  cridh  an  edin,  bidh  do  chridhe  air  chrith  ri 
d'  bheb  ("  If  you  eat  the  bird's  heart,  your  heart  will 
palpitate  for  ever.") 


40 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

there  was  a  mystery.  Iain's  father  was  said 
to  be  an  lona  man,  but  that  was  only  a 
politeness  and  a  play  upon  words  ("  The 
holy  isle  of  the  western  sea "  could  mean 
either  lona  or  the  mystic  Hy-Brasil,  or  Tir- 
na-thonn  of  the  underworld) ;  for  he  had  no 
mortal  father,  but  a  man  of  the  Smiling 
Distant  People  was  his  father.  Iain's  mother 
had  loved  her  Leannan-shee,  her  fairy  sweet- 
heart, but  that  love  is  too  strong  for  a  woman 
to  bear,  and  she  died.  Before  Iain  was  bom 
she  lay  under  a  bush  of  whitethorn,  and  her 
Leannan  appeared  to  her.  "  I  can't  give  you 
life,"  he  said,  "  unless  you  '11  come  away  with 
me."  But  she  would  not ;  for  she  wished 
the  child  to  have  Christian  baptism.  "  Well, 
good-bye,"  he  said,  "  but  you  are  a  weak  love. 
A  woman  should  care  more  for  her  lover 
than  her  child.  But  I  '11  do  this :  I  '11  give 
the  child  the  dew,  an'  he  won't  die,  an'  we  '11 
take  him  away  when  we  want  him.  An'  for 
a  gift  to  him,  you  can  have  either  beauty  or 
music."  "  I  don't  want  the  dew,"  she  said, 
"for  I  'd  rather  he  lay  below  the  grass  beside 
me  when  his  time  comes :  an'  as  for  beauty, 
it  's  been  my  sorrow.  But  because  I  love 
the  songs  you  have  sung  to  me  an'  wooed 
me  with,  an'  made  me  forget  to  hide  my  soul 
from  you  —  an'  it  fallen  as  helpless  as  a 
broken  wave  on  damp  sand  —  let  the  child 


41 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

have  the  binnbeul  and  the  lamh  clarsaireachd 
(the  melodious  mouth  and  the  harping 
hand)." 

And  truly  enough  Iain  Macneil  "  went 
away."  He  went  back  to  his  own  people. 
It  must  have  been  a  grief  to  him  not  to  lie 
under  the  grass  beside  his  mother,  but  it  was 
not  for  his  helping.  For  days  before  he 
mysteriously  disappeared  he  went  about 
making  a  cincharan  like  a  November  wind, 
a  singular  plaintive  moaning.  When  asked 
by  his  foster-brother  Micheil  why  he  was  not 
content,  he  answered  only  "  Far  am  bi  mo 
ghaol,  bidh  mo  thathaich  "  (Where  my  Love 
is,  there  must  my  returning  be).  He  had 
for  days,  said  Micheil,  the  mournful  crying 
in  the  ear  that  is  so  often  a  presage  of  death 
or  sorrow ;  and  himself  had  said  once  "  Tha 
'n  eabh  a'  m'  chenais"  —  the  cry  is  in  my 
ear.  When  he  went  away,  that  going  was 
the  way  of  the  snow. 


XI 


It  is  no  wonder  that  legends  of  Finn  and 
Oisein,  of  Oscur  and  Gaul  and  Diarmuid,  of 
Cuchullin,  and  many  of  the  old  stories  of  the 
Gaelic  chivalry  survive  in  the  isles.  There, 
more  than  in  Ireland,  Gaelic  has  survived  as 
the  living  speech,  and  though  now  in  the 


42 


THE    ISLE    OV    DREAMS 

Inner  Hebrides  it  is  dying  before  "an  a' 
Beurla,"  the  English  tongue,  and  still  more 
before  the  degraded  "  Bheurla  leathan  "  or 
Glasgow-English  of  the  lowland  west,  the 
old  vernacular  still  holds  an  ancient  treasure. 
The  last  time  I  sailed  to  Staffa  from  Ulva, 
a  dead  calm  set  in,  and  we  took  a  man  from 
Gometra  to  help  with  an  oar  —  his  recom- 
mendation being  that  he  was  "  cho  liidir  ri 
Cuchullin,"  as  strong  as  Coohoolin.  But 
neither  in  lona  nor  in  the  northward  isles 
nor  in  Skye  itself,  have  I  found  or  heard  of 
much  concerning  the  great  Gaelic  hero. 
Fionn  and  Oisin  and  Diarmid  are  the  names 
oftenest  heard,  both  in  legend  and  proverbial 
allusion.  An  habitual  mistake  is  made  by 
writers  who  speak  of  the  famous  Cuchullin  or 
Cuthullin  mountains  in  Skye  as  having  been 
named  after  Cuchullin ;  and  though  some- 
times the  local  guides  to  summer  tourists 
may  speak  of  the  Gaelic  hero  in  connection 
with  the  mountains  north  of  Coruisk,  that  is 
only  because  of  hearsay.  The  Gaelic  name 
should  never  be  rendered  as  the  Cuthullin 
or  Cohoolin  mountains,  but  as  the  Coolins. 
A  possible  meaning  of  the  name  Ctdlfhion 
(Kyoolyun  or  Coolun),  is  "the  fine  corner," 
but,  as  has  been  suggested,  the  hills  may 
have  got  their  name  because  of  the  "  cuillionn 
mara "   or   sea-holly,    which    is   pronounced 


43 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

Ku'  P-unn  or  coolin.  This  is  most  probably 
the  origin  of  the  name. 

In  fine  weather  one  may  see  from  lona  the 
Coolins  standing  out  in  lovely  blue  against 
the  northern  sky-line,  their  contours  the 
most  beautiful  feature  in  a  view  of  surpassing 
beauty.  How  often  have  I  watched  them, 
how  often  dreamed  of  what  they  have  seen, 
since  Oisin  passed  that  way  with  Malvina : 
since  Cuchullin  learned  the  feats  of  war  at 
Dun  Sgaiah,  from  that  great  queen  whose 
name,  it  is  said,  the  island  bears  in  remem- 
brance of  her;  since  Connlaoch,  his  son,  set 
sail  to  meet  so  tragic  a  death  in  Ireland. 
There  are  two  women  of  Gaelic  antiquity 
who  above  all  others  have  always  held  my 
imagination  as  with  a  spell :  Scathach  or 
Sgathaith  (sky-ah),  the  sombre  Amazonian 
queen  of  the  mountain-island  (then  perhaps, 
as  now,  known  also  as  the  Isle  of  Mist),  and 
Meave,  the  great  queen  of  Connaught,  whose 
name  has  its  mountain  bases  in  gigantic 
wars,  and  its  summits  among  the  wild  poetry 
and  romance  of  the  Shee. 

My  earliest  knowledge  of  the  heroic  cycle 
of  Celtic  mythology  and  history  came  to  me, 
as  a  child,  when  I  spent  my  first  summer  in 
Zona.  How  well  I  remember  a  fantastic 
legend  I  was  told :  how  that  these  far  blue 
mountains,  so  freaked  into  a  savage  beauty. 


44 


THE    ISLE    OK    DREAMS 

were  due  to  the  sword-play  of  CuchuUin. 
And  this  happened  because  the  Queen  o' 
Skye  had  put  a  spear  through  the  two  breasts 
of  his  love,  so  that  he  w^ent  in  among  her 
warrior  women  and  slew  every  one,  and  sev- 
ered the  head  of  Sgaiah  herself,  and  threw 
it  into  Coruisk,  where  to  this  day  it  floats 
as  Eilean  Dubh,  the  dark  isle.  Thereafter, 
Cuchullin  hewed  the  mountain-tops  into 
great  clefts,  and  trampled  the  hills  into  a 
craggy  wilderness,  and  then  rushed  into  the 
waves  and  fought  with  the  sea-hordes  till  far 
away  the  bewildered  and  terrified  stallions 
of  the  ocean  dashed  upon  the  rocks  of  Man 
and  uttermost  shores  of  Erin. 

This  magnificent  mountain  range  can  be 
seen  better  still  from  Lunga  near  lona, 
whence  it  is  a  short  sail  with  a  southerly 
wind.  In  I>unga  there  is  a  hill  called  Cnoc 
Cruit  or  Dun  Cruit,  and  thence  one  may  see, 
as  in  a  vast  illuminated  missal  whose  pages 
are  of  deep  blue  with  bindings  of  azure  and 
pale  gold,  innumerable  green  isles  and  peaks 
and  hills  of  the  hue  of  the  wild  plum.  When 
last  I  was  there  it  was  a  day  of  cloudless 
June.  There  was  not  a  sound  but  the  hum 
of  the  wild  bee  foraging  in  the  long  garths  of 
white  clover,  and  the  continual  sighing  of  a 
wave.  Listening,  I  thought  I  heard  a  harper 
playing  in  the  hollow  of  the  hill.     It  may 


45 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

have  been  the  bees  heavy  with  the  wine  of 
honey,  but  I  was  content  with  my  fancy  and 
fell  asleep,  and  dreamed  that  a  harper  came 
out  of  the  hill,  at  first  so  small  that  he  seemed 
like  the  green  stalk  of  a  lily  and  had  hands 
like  daisies,  and  then  so  great  that  I  saw  his 
breath  darkening  the  waves  far  out  on  the 
Hebrid  sea.  He  played,  till  I  saw  the  stars 
fall  in  a  ceaseless,  dazzling  rain  upon  lona. 
A  wind  blew  that  rain  away,  and  out  of  the 
wave  that  had  been  lona  I  saw  thousands 
upon  thousands  of  white  doves  rise  from  the 
foam  and  fly  down  the  four  great  highways 
of  the  wind.  When  I  woke,  there  was  no 
one  near.  lona  lay  like  an  emerald  under 
the  wild-plum  bloom  of  the  Mull  mountains. 
The  bees  stumbled  through  the  clover;  a 
heron  stood  silver-grey  upon  a  grey-blue 
stone ;  the  continual  wave  was,  as  before,  as 
one  wave,  and  with  the  same  hushed  sighing. 

XII 

Two  or  three  years  ago  I  heard  a  boatman 
use  a  singular  phrase,  to  the  effect  that  a 
certain  deed  was  as  kindly  a  thought  as  that 
of  the  piper  who  played  to  St.  Michei)  in  his 
grave.  I  had  never  heard  of  this  before,  or 
anything  like  it,  nor  have  I  since,  on  lip  or 
in  book.  He  told  me  that  he  spoke  of  a 
wandering  piper  known  as  Piobaire  Raonull 

46 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

Dall,  Blind  Piper  Ronald,  who  fifty  years  or 
so  ago  used  to  wander  through  the  isles  and 
West  Highlands;  and  how  he  never  failed 
to  play  a  spring  on  his  pipes,  either  to  please 
or  to  console,  or  maybe  to  air  a  lament  for 
what's  lost  now  and  can't  come  again,  when 
on  any  holy  day  he  stood  before  a  figure  of 
the  Virgin  (as  he  might  well  do  in  Barra  or 
South  Uist),  or  by  old  tombs  or  habitations 
of  saints.  My  friend's  father  or  one  of  his 
people,  once,  in  the  Kyles  of  Bute,  when 
sailing  past  the  little  ruinous  graveyard  of 
Kilmichael  on  the  Bute  shore,  had  come 
upon  Raonull-Dall,  pacing  slowly  before 
the  broken  stones  and  the  little  cell  which 
legend  says  is  both  the  hermitage  and  the 
grave  of  St.  Micheil.  When  asked  what  he 
was  playing  and  what  for,  in  that  lonely  spot, 
he  said  it  was  an  old  ancient  pibroch,  the 
Gathering  of  the  Clerics,  which  he  was  play- 
ing just  to  cheer  the  heart  of  the  good  man 
down  below.  When  told  that  St.  Micheil 
would  be  having  his  fill  of  good  music 
where  he  was,  the  old  man  came  away  in  the 
boat,  and  for  long  sat  silent  and  strangely 
disheartened.  I  have  more  than  once  since 
then  sailed  to  that  little  lonely  ancient  grave 
of  Kilmichael  in  the  Kyles  of  Bute,  from 
Tignabruaich  or  further  Cantyre,  and  have 
wished  that  I  too  could  play  a  spring  upon 


47 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

the  pipes,  for  if  so  I  would  play  to  the  kind 
heart  of  "  Piobaire  Raonull  Dall." 

Of  all  the  saints  of  the  west,  from  St. 
Molios  or  Molossius  (Maol-Iosa  ?  the  servant 
of  Jesus  ?)  who  has  left  his  nanae  in  the 
chief  township  in  Arran,  to  St.  Barr,  who 
has  given  his  to  the  largest  of  the  Bishop's 
Isles,  as  the  great  Barra  island-chain  in  the 
South  Hebrides  used  to  be  called,  there  is 
none  so  commonly  remembered  and  so  fre- 
(juently  invoked  as  St.  Micheil.  There  used 
to  be  no  festival  in  the  Western  Isles  so 
popular  as  that  held  on  29th  September,  "  La' 
Fheill  Mhicheil,"  the  Day  of  the  Festival  of 
Michael ;  and  the  Eve  of  Michael's  Day  is 
still  in  a  few  places  one  of  the  gayest  nights 
in  the  year,  though  no  longer  is  every  barn 
turned  into  a  dancing  place  or  a  place  of 
merry-making  or,  at  least,  a  place  for  lovers 
to  meet  and  give  betrothal  gifts.  The  day 
itself,  in  the  Catholic  Isles,  was  begun  with 
a  special  Mass,  and  from  hour  to  hour  was 
filled  with  traditional  duties  and  pleasures. 

The  whole  of  the  St.  Micheil  ceremonies 
were  of  a  remote  origin,  and  some,  as  the 
ancient  and  almost  inexplicable  dances,  and 
their  archaic  accompaniment  of  word  and 
gesture,  far  older  than  the  sacrificial  slaying 
of  the  Michaelmas  Lamb.  It  is,  however, 
not  improbable  that  this  latter  rite  was  a 

48 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

survival  of  a  pagan  custom  long  anterior  to 
the  substitution  of  the  Christian  for  the 
Druidic  faith. 

The  "  lollach  Mhicheil  "  —  the  triumphal 
song  of  Michael  —  is  quite  as  much  pagan  as 
Christian.  We  have  here,  indeed,  one  of  the 
most  interesting  and  convincing  instances  of 
the  transmutation  of  a  personal  symbol.  St. 
Michael  is  on  the  surface  a  saint  of  extraor- 
dinary powers  and  the  patron  of  the  shores 
and  the  shore-folk :  deeper,  he  is  an  angel, 
who  is  upon  the  sea  what  the  angelican  saint, 
St.  George,  is  upon  the  land:  deeper,  he  is, 
a  blending  of  the  Roman  Neptune  and  the 
Greek  Poseidon :  deeper,  he  is  himself  an 
ancient  Celtic  god :  deeper,  he  is  no  other 
than  Manannan,  the  god  of  ocean  and  all 
■waters,  in  the  Gaelic  Pantheon :  as,  once 
more,  Manannan  himself  is  dimly  revealed  to 
us  as  still  more  ancient,  more  primitive,  and 
even  as  supreme  in  remote  godhead,  the 
Father  of  an  immortal  Clan. 

To  this  day  Micheil  is  sometimes  alluded 
to  as  the  god  Micheil,  and  I  have  seen  some 
ver)'  strange  Gaelic  lines  which  run  in  effect : 
"  It  was  well  thou  hadst  the  horse  of  the  god  Micheil 
Who  goes  without  a  bit  in  his  mouth, 
So  that  thou  couldst  ride  him  through  the  fields  of  the 

air, 
And  with  him  leap  over  the  knowledge  of  Nature  "  — 
presumably  not  very  ancient  as  they  stand. 


49 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

because  of  the  use  of  "  steud  "  for  horse,  and 
"naduir"  for  nature,  obvious  adaptations 
from  EngUsh  and  Latin.  Certainly  St. 
Micheil  has  left  his  name  in  many  places, 
from  the  shores  of  the  Hebrides  to  the 
famous  Mont  St.  Michel  of  Brittany,  and  I 
doubt  not  that  everywhere  an  earlier  folk,  at 
the  same  places,  called  him  Manannan.  In 
a  most  unlikely  place  to  find  a  record  of  old 
hymns  and  folk-songs,  one  of  the  volumes  of 
Reports  of  the  Highlands  and  Islands  Com- 
mission, Mr.  Carmichael  many  years  ago 
contributed  some  of  his  unequalled  store 
of  Hebridean  reminiscence  and  knowledge. 
Among  these  old  things  saved,  there  is  none 
that  is  better  worth  saving  than  the  beauti- 
ful Catholic  hymn  or  invocation  sung  at  the 
time  of  the  midsummer  migration  to  the  hill- 
pastures.  In  this  shealing-hymn  the  three 
powers  who  are  invoked  are  St.  Micheil  (for 
he  is  a  patron  saint  of  horses  and  travel, 
as  well  as  of  the  sea  and  seafarers),  St. 
Columba,  guardian  of  cattle,  and  the  Virgin 
Mary,  "  Mathair  Uain  ghil,"  "  Mother  of  the 
White  Lamb,"  as  the  tender  Gaelic  has  it, 
who  is  so  beautifully  called  the  golden-haired 
Virgin  Shepherdess. 

This  is  a  far  cry  from  lona  I  And  I  had 
meant  to  write  only  of  how  I  heard  so 
recently  as  three  or  four  summers  ago  a 


50 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

verse  of  the  Uist  Herding  Chant.  It  was 
recited  to  me,  overagainst  DunI,  by  a  friend 
who  is  a  crofter  in  that  part  of  lona.  It 
was  not  quite  as  Mr.  Carmichael  translates 
it,  but  near  enough.  The  Rann  Buachhail- 
leag  is,  I  should  add,  addressed  to  the  cattle. 

"  The  protection  of  God  and  Columba 

Encompass  your  going  and  coming, 

And  about  you  be  the  milkmaid  of  the  smooth 

white  palms, 
Bridget  of  the  clustering  hair,  golden  brown." 

On  lona,  however,  there  is,  so  far  as  I 
remember,  no  special  spot  sacred  to  St. 
Micheil :  but  there  is  a  legend  that  on  the 
night  Columba  died  Micheil  came  over  the 
waves  on  a  rippling  flood  of  light,  which  was 
a  cloud  of  angelic  wings,  and  that  he  sang  a 
hymn  to  the  soul  of  the  saint  before  it  took 
flight  for  its  heavenly  fatherland.  No  one 
heard  that  hymn  save  Colum,  but  I  think 
that  he  who  first  spoke  of  it  remembered  a 
more  ancient  legend  of  how  Manannan  came 
to  Cuchullin  when  he  was  in  the  country  of 
the  Shee,  when  Liban  laughed. 

XIII 

I  spoke  of  Port-a-Churaich,  the  Ilaven  of 
the  Coracle,  a  little  ago.  How  strange  a 
history  is  that  of  lona  since  the  coming  of 
the  Irish  priest,  Crimthan,  or  Crimmon  as 


51 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

we  call  the  name,  surnamed  Colum  Cille,  the 
Dove  of  the  Church.  Perhaps  its  unwritten 
history  is  not  less  strange.  God  was  revered 
on  lona  by  priests  of  a  forgotten  faith  before 
the  Cross  was  raised.  The  sun-priest  and 
the  moon-worshipper  had  their  revelation 
here.  I  do  not  think  their  offerings  were 
despised.  Colum,  who  loved  the  Trinity  so 
well  that  on  one  occasion  he  subsisted  for 
three  days  on  the  mystery  of  the  mere  word, 
did  not  forego  the  luxury  of  human  sacrifice, 
though  he  abhorred  the  blood  stained  altar. 
For,  to  him,  an  obstinate  pagan  slain  was  to 
the  glory  of  God.  The  moon-worshipper 
did  no  worse  when  he  led  the  chosen  victim 
to  the  dolmen.  But  the  moon-worshipper 
was  a  Pict  without  the  marvel  of  the  written 
word;  so  he  remained  a  heathen,  and  the 
Christian  named  himself  saint  or  martyr. 

None  knows  with  surety  who  dwelled  on 
this  mysterious  island  before  the  famous  son 
of  Feilim  of  Clan  Domnhuil,  great-grandson 
of  Neil  of  the  Nine  Hostages,  came  with  his 
fellow-monks  and  raised  the  Cross  among 
the  wondering  Picts.  But  the  furthest  record 
tells  of  worship.  Legend  itself  is  more 
ancient  here  than  elsewhere.  Once  a  woman 
was  worshipped.  Some  say  she  was  the 
moon,  but  this  was  before  the  dim  day  of 
the  moon-worshippers.     (In   Gaelic  too,  as 


52 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

with  all  the  Celtic  peoples,  it  is  not  the 
moon  but  the  sun  that  is  feminine.)  She 
may  have  been  an  ancestral  Brighde,  or  that 
mysterious  Anait  whose  Scythian  name  sur- 
vives elsewhere  in  the  Gaelic  west,  and 
nothing  else  of  all  her  ancient  glory  but  that 
shadowy  word.  Perhaps,  here,  the  Celts 
remembered  one  whom  they  had  heard  of  in 
Asian  valleys  or  by  the  waters  of  Nilus,  and 
called  upon  Isis  under  a  new  name. 

The  Haven  of  the  Coracle !  It  was  not 
Colum  and  his  white-robe  company  who  first 
made  the  isle  sacred.  I  have  heard  that 
when  Mary  Macleod  (our  best-loved  Hebri- 
dean  poet)  was  asked  what  she  thought  of 
lona,  she  replied  that  she  thought  it  was  the 
one  bit  of  Eden  that  had  not  been  destroyed, 
and  that  it  was  none  other  than  the  central 
isle  in  the  Garden  untouched  of  Eve  or 
Adam,  where  the  angels  waited. 

Many  others  have  dreamed  by  that  lonely 
cairn  of  the  Irish  king,  before  Colum,  and, 
doubtless,  many  since  the  child  who  sought 
the  Divine  Forges. 

XIV 

Years  afterwards  I  wrote,  in  the  same 
place,  after  an  absence  wherein  lona  had 
become  as  a  dream  to  me,  the  story  of  St. 
Bridget,  in  the  Hebrides  called  Bride,  under 


S3 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

the  love-name  commonly  given  her,  Muime 
Chriosd  —  Christ's  Foster-Mother.  May  I 
quote  again,  here,  as  so  apposite  to  what 
I  have  written,  to  what  indirectly  I  am  try- 
ing to  convey  of  the  spiritual  history  of  lona, 
some  portion  of  it  ? 

In  my  legendary  story  I  tell  of  how  one 
called  Uiighall,  of  a  kingly  line,  sailing  from 
Ireland,  came  to  be  cast  upon  the  ocean-shore 
of  lona,  then  called  Innis-nan-Dhruidhneach, 
the  Isle  of  the  Druids  —  for  this  was  before 
the  cry  of  the  Sacred  Wolf  was  heard,  as  an 
old-time  island  poet  has  it,  playing  upon 
Colum's  house-name,  Crimthan,  signifying  a 
wolf.  The  frail  coracle  in  which  he  and 
others  had  crossed  the  Moyle  had  been 
driven  before  a  tempest,  and  cast  at  sunrise 
like  a  spent  fish  upon  the  rocks  of  the  little 
haven  that  is  now  called  Port-aChuraich. 
All  had  found  death  in  the  wave  except  him- 
self and  the  little  girl-child  he  had  brought 
with  him  from  Ireland,  the  child  of  so  much 
magic  mystery. 

When,  warmed  by  the  sun,  they  rose,  they 
found  themselves  in  a  waste  place.  Dughall 
was  ill  in  his  mind  because  of  the  portents, 
and  now  to  his  fear  and  amaze  the  child 
Bridget  knelt  on  the  stones,  and,  with  claspt 
hands,  frail  and  pink  as  the  sea-shells  round 
about  her,  sang  a  song  of  words  which  were 


54 


THE   ISLE   OF   DREAMS 

unknown  to  him.  This  was  the  more  mar- 
vellous, as  she  was  yet  but  an  infant,  and 
could  say  few  words  even  of  Erse,  the  only 
tongue  she  had  heard. 

At  this  portent,  he  knew  that  Aodh  the 
Ard-Druid  had  spoken  seeingly.  Truly  this 
child  was  not  of  human  parentage.  So  he, 
too,  kneeled;  and,  bowing  before  her,  asked 
if  she  were  of  the  race  of  the  Tuatha  de 
Danann,  or  of  the  older  gods,  and  what  her 
will  was,  that  he  might  be  her  servant.  Then 
it  was  that  the  kneeling  child  looked  at  him, 
and  sang  in  a  low  sweet  voice  in  Erse : 

"  I  am  but  a  little  child, 
Diighall,  son  of  Hugh,  son  of  Art, 
But  ■my  garment  shall  be  laid 
On  the  lord  of  the  world, 
Yea,  surely  it  shall  be  that  He, 
Tlie  King  of  Elements  Himself 
Shall  lean  against  my  bosom, 
And  I  will  give  him  peace. 
And  peace  will  I  give  to  all  who  ask 
Because  of  this  mighty  Prince, 
And  because  of  his  Mother  that  is  the 
Daughter  of  Peace." 

And  while  Diighall  Donn  was  still  marvel- 
ling at  this  thing,  the  Arch-Druid  of  lona 
approached,  with  his  white-robed  priests. 
A  grave  welcome  was  given  to  the  stranger. 
While  the  youngest  of  the  servants  of  God 
was  entrusted  with  the  child,  the  Arch-Druid 


55 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

took  Dughall  aside  and  questioned  him.  It 
was  not  till  the  third  day  that  the  old  man 
gave  his  decision.  Dughall  Donn  was  to 
abide  on  lona  if  he  so  willed;  but  the  child 
was  to  stay.  His  life  would  be  spared,  nor 
would  he  be  a  bondager  of  any  kind,  and  a 
little  land  to  till  would  be  given  him,  and  all 
that  he  might  need.  But  of  his  past  he  was 
to  say  no  word.  His  name  was  to  become 
as  nought,  and  he  was  to  be  known  simply  as 
Duvach.  The  child,  too,  was  to  be  named 
Bride,  for  that  was  the  way  the  name  Bridget 
is  called  in  the  Erse  of  the  Isles. 

To  the  question  of  Dughall,  that  was 
thenceforth  Duvach,  as  to  why  he  laid  so 
great  stress  on  the  child,  who  was  a  girl,  and 
the  reputed  offspring  of  shame  at  that, 
Cathal  the  Arch-Druid  replied  thus :  "  My 
kinsman  Aodh  of  the  golden  hair,  who  sent 
you  here,  was  wiser  than  Hugh  the  king, 
and  all  the  Druids  of  Aoimag.  Truly,  this 
child  is  an  Immortal.  There  is  an  ancient 
prophecy  concerning  her:  surely  of  her  who 
is  now  here,  and  no  other.  There  shall  be, 
it  says,  a  spotless  maid  bom  of  a  virgin  of 
the  ancient  divine  race  in  Innisfail.  And 
when  for  the  seventh  time  the  sacred  year 
has  come,  she  will  hold  Eternity  in  her  lap 
as  a  white  flower.  Her  maiden  breasts  shall 
swell  with  milk  for  the  Prince  of  the  World. 


56 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

She  shall  give  suck  to  the  King  of  the 
Elements.  So  I  say  unto  you,  Uuvach,  go 
in  peace.  Take  unto  yourself  a  wife,  and 
live  upon  the  place  I  will  allot  on  the  east 
side  of  lona.  Treat  Bride  as  though  she 
were  your  soul,  and  leave  her  much  alone, 
and  let  her  learn  of  the  sun  and  the  wind. 
In  the  fulness  of  time  the  prophecy  shall  be 
fulfilled." 

So  was  it,  from  that  day  of  the  days. 
Duvach  took  a  wife  unto  himself,  who 
weaned  the  little  Bride,  who  grew  in  beauty 
and  grace,  so  that  all  men  marvelled.  Year 
by  year  for  seven  years  the  wife  of  Duvach 
bore  him  a  son,  and  these  grew  apace  in 
strength,  so  that  by  the  beginning  of  the 
third  year  of  the  seventh  circle  of  Bride's 
life  there  were  three  stalwart  youths  to 
brother  her,  and  three  comely  and  strong 
lads,  and  one  young  boy  fair  to  see.  Nor 
did  any  one,  not  even  Bride  herself,  saving 
Cathal  the  Arch-Druid,  know  that  Duvach 
the  herdsman  was  Dughall  Donn,  of  a 
princely  race  in  Innisfail. 

In  the  end,  too,  Duvach  came  to  think 
that  he  had  dreamed,  or  at  the  least  that 
Cathal  had  not  interpreted  the  prophecy 
aright.  For  though  Bride  was  of  exceeding 
beauty,  and  of  a  holiness  that  made  the 
young  druids  bow  before  her  as  though  she 


57 


THK    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

were  a  bindia,  yet  the  world  went  on  as 
before,  and  the  days  brought  no  change. 
Often,  while  she  was  still  a  child,  he  had 
questioned  her  about  the  words  she  had  said 
as  a  babe,  but  she  had  no  memory  of  them. 
Once,  in  her  ninth  year,  he  came  upon  her 
on  the  hillside  of  Dun-I  singing  these  self- 
same words.  Her  eyes  dreamed  far  away. 
He  bowed  his  head,  and,  praying  to  the 
Giver  of  Light,  hurried  to  Cathal.  The  old 
man  bade  him  speak  no  more  to  the  child 
concerning  the  mysteries. 

Bride  lived  the  hours  of  her  days  upon  the 
slopes  of  Dun-I,  herding  the  sheep,  or  in 
following  the  kye  upon  the  green  hillocks 
and  grassy  dunes  of  what  then,  as  now,  was 
called  the  Machar.  The  beauty  of  the  world 
was  her  daily  food.  The  spirit  within  her 
was  like  sunlight  behind  a  white  flower. 
The  birdeens  in  the  green  bushes  sang  for 
joy  when  they  saw  her  blue  eyes.  The 
tender  prayers  that  were  in  her  heart  were 
often  seen  flying  above  her  head  in  the  form 
of  white  doves  of  sunshine. 

But  when  the  middle  of  the  year  came  that 
was  (though  Duvach  had  forgotten  it)  the 
year  of  the  prophecy,  his  eldest  son,  Conn, 
who  was  now  a  man,  murmured  against  the 
virginity  of  Bride,  because  of  her  beauty  and 
because  a  chieftain   of   the   mainland   was 


58 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

eager  to  wed  her.  "  I  shall  wed  Bride  or 
raid  lona,"  was  the  message  he  had  sent. 

So  one  day,  before  the  Great  Fire  of  the 
summer  festival,  Conn  and  his  brothers 
reproached  Bride. 

"  Idle  are  these  pure  eyes,  O  Bride,  not  to 
be  as  lamps  at  thy  marriage-bed." 

"  Truly,  it  is  not  by  the  eyes  that  we  live," 
replied  the  maiden  gently,  while  to  their  fear 
and  amazement  she  passed  her  hand  before 
her  face  and  let  them  see  that  the  sockets 
were  empty. 

Trembling  with  awe  at  this  portent,  Diivach 
intervened : 

"  By  the  sun  I  swear  it,  O  Bride,  that  thou 
shalt  marry  whomsoever  thou  wilt  and  none 
other,  and  when  thou  wilt,  or  not  at  all,  if 
such  be  thy  will." 

And  when  he  had  spoken.  Bride  smiled,  and 
passed  her  hand  before  her  face  again,  and  all 
there  were  abashed  because  of  the  blue  light 
as  of  morning  that  was  in  her  shining  eyes. 

It  was  while  the  dew  was  yet  wet  on  the 
grass  that  on  the  morrow  Bride  came  out  of 
her  father's  house,  and  went  up  the  steep 
slope  of  Dfln-I.  The  crying  of  the  ewes 
and  lambs  at  the  pastures  came  plaintively 
against  the  dawn.  The  lowing  of  the  kye 
arose  from  the  sandy  hollows  by  the  shore, 
or  from  the  meadows  on  the  lower  slopes. 


59 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

Through  the  whole  island  went  a  rapid, 
trickling  sound,  most  sweet  to  hear :  the 
myriad  voices  of  twittering  birds,  from  the 
dotterel  in  the  seaweed,  to  the  larks  climbing 
the  blue  slopes  of  heaven. 

This  was  the  festival  of  her  birth,  and  she 
was  clad  in  white.  About  her  waist  was  a 
girdle  of  the  sacred  rowan,  the  feathery  green 
leaves  flickering  dusky  shadows  upon  her 
robe  as  she  moved.  The  light  upon  her 
yellow  hair  was  as  when  morning  wakes, 
laughing  in  wind  amid  the  tall  com.  As  she 
went  she  sang  to  herself,  softly  as  the 
crooning  of  a  dove.  If  any  had  been  there 
to  hear  he  would  have  been  abashed,  for  the 
words  were  not  in  Erse,  and  the  eyes  of 
the  beautiful  girl  were  as  those  of  one  in  a 
vision. 

When,  at  last,  a  brief  while  before  sunrise, 
she  reached  the  summit  of  the  Scuir,  that  is 
so  small  a  hill  and  yet  seems  so  big  in  lona, 
where  it  is  the  sole  peak,  she  found  three 
young  druids  there,  ready  to  tend  the  sacred 
fire  the  moment  the  sunrays  should  kindle  it. 
Each  was  clad  in  a  white  robe,  with  fillets 
of  oak  leaves ;  and  each  had  a  golden 
armlet.  They  made  a  quiet  obeisance  as 
she  approached.  One  stepped  forward,  with 
a  flush  in  his  face  because  of  her  beauty, 
that  was  as  a  sea-wave  for  grace  and  a  flower 

60 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

for  purity,  as  sunlight  for  joy  and  moonlight 
for  peace. 

"Thou  mayst  draw  near  if  thou  wilt, 
Bride,  daughter  of  Duvach,"  he  said,  with 
something  of  reverence  as  well  as  of  grave 
courtesy  in  his  voice ;  "  for  the  holy  Cathal 
hath  said  that  the  breath  of  the  Source  of 
All  is  upon  thee.  It  is  not  lawful  for  women 
to  be  here  at  this  moment,  but  thou  hast  the 
law  shining  upon  thy  face  and  in  thine  eyes. 
Hast  thou  come  to  pray  ?  " 

But  at  that  moment  a  cry  came  from  one 
of  his  companions.  He  turned,  and  rejoined 
his  fellows.  Then  all  three  sank  upon  their 
knees,  and  with  outstretched  arms  hailed  the 
rising  of  God. 

As  the  sun  rose,  a  solemn  chant  swelled 
from  their  lips,  ascending  as  incense  through 
the  silent  air.  The  glory  of  the  new  day 
came  soundlessly.  Peace  was  in  the  blue 
heaven,  on  the  blue-green  sea,  and  on  the 
green  land.  There  was  no  wind,  even  where 
the  currents  of  the  deep  moved  in  shadowy 
purple.  The  sea  itself  was  silent,  making  no 
more  than  a  sighing  slumber-breath  round 
the  white  sands  of  the  isle,  or  a  dull  whisper 
where  the  tide  lifted  the  long  weed  that 
clung  to  the  rocks. 

In  what  strange,  mysterious  way.  Bride  did 
not  see ;  but  as  the  three  druids  held  their 


6i 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

hands  before  the  sacred  fire  there  was  a  faint 
crackling,  then  three  thin  spirals  of  blue 
smoke  rose,  and  soon  dusky  red  and  wan 
yellow  tongues  of  flame  moved  to  and  fro. 
The  sacrifice  of  God  was  made.  Out  of  the 
immeasurable  heaven  He  had  come,  in  his 
golden  chariot.  Now,  in  the  wonder  and 
mystery  of  His  love,  He  was  re-born  upon 
the  world,  re-bom  a  little  fugitive  flame 
upon  a  low  hill  in  a  remote  isle.  Great  must 
be  His  love  that  he  could  die  thus  daily  in  a 
thousand  places :  so  great  His  love  that  he 
could  give  up  His  own  body  to  daily  death, 
and  suffer  the  holy  flame  that  was  in  the 
embers  He  illumined  to  be  lighted  and 
revered  and  then  scattered  to  the  four 
quarters  of  the  world. 

Bride  could  bear  no  longer  the  mystery  of 
this  great  love.  It  moved  her  to  an  ecstasy. 
What  tenderness  of  divine  love  that  could 
thus  redeem  the  world  daily :  what  long- 
suffering  for  all  the  evil  and  cruelty  done 
hourly  upon  the  weeping  earth  :  what  patience 
with  the  bitterness  of  the  blind  fates  I  The 
beauty  of  the  worship  of  Be'al  was  upon  her 
as  a  golden  glory.  Her  heart  leaped  to  a 
song  that  could  not  be  sung. 

Bowing  her  head,  so  that  the  tears  fell 
upon  her  hands,  she  rose  and  moved 
away. 

62 


THE   ISLE   OF   DREAMS 
XV 

Elsewhere  I  have  told  how  a  good  man  of 
lona  sailed  along  the  coast  one  Sabbath 
afternoon  with  the  Holy  Book,  and  put  the 
Word  upon  the  seals  of  Soa :  and,  in  another 
tale,  how  a  lonely  man  fought  with  a  sea- 
woman,  that  was  a  seal;  as,  again,  how 
two  fishermen  strove  with  the  sea-witch  of 
Earraid  :  and,  in  "  The  Dan-nan-Ron,"  of  a 
man  who  went  mad  with  the  sea-madness, 
because  of  the  seal-blood  that  was  in  his 
veins,  he  being  a  MacOdrum  of  Uist,  and 
one  of  the  Sliochd  nan  Ron,  the  Tribe  of  the 
Seal.  And  those  who  have  read  the  tale, 
twice  printed,  once  as  "  The  Annir  Choille," 
and  again  as  "  Cathal  of  the  Woods,"  will 
remember  how,  at  the  end,  the  good  hermit 
Molios,  when  near  death  in  his  sea-cave  of 
Arran,  called  the  seals  to  come  out  of  the 
wave  and  listen  to  him,  so  that  he  might  tell 
them  the  white  story  of  Christ ;  and  how  in 
the  moonshine,  with  the  flowing  tide  stealing 
from  his  feet  to  his  knees,  the  old  saint 
preached  the  gospel  of  love,  while  the  seals 
crouched  upon  the  rocks,  with  their  brown 
eyes  filled  with  glad  tears :  and  how,  before 
his  death  at  dawn,  he  was  comforted  by 
hearing  them  splashing  to  and  fro  in  the 
moon-dazzle,  and  calling  one  to  the  other, 
"  We,  too,  are  of  the  sons  of  God." 


63 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

What  has  so  often  been  written  about  is  a 
reflection  of  what  is  in  the  mind :  and  though 
stories  of  the  seals  may  be  heard  from  the 
Rhinns  of  Islay  to  the  Seven  Hunters  (and  I 
first  heard  that  of  the  MacOdrums,  the  seal- 
folk,  from  a  Uist  man),  I  think  that  it  was 
because  of  what  I  heard  of  the  sea-people 
on  lona,  when  I  was  a  child,  that  they  have 
been  so  much  with  me  in  remembrance. 

In  the  short  tale  of  the  Moon-child,  I  told 
how  two  seals  that  had  been  wronged  by  a 
curse  which  had  been  put  upon  them  by 
Columba,  forgave  the  saint,  and  gave  him  a 
sore-won  peace.  I  recall  another  (unpub- 
lished) tale,  where  a  seal  called  Domnhuil 
Dhu  —  a  name  of  evil  omen  —  was  heard 
laughing  one  Hallowe'en  on  the  rocks  below 
the  ruined  abbey,  and  calling  to  the  crea- 
tures of  the  sea  that  God  was  dead :  and 
how  the  man  who  heard  him  laughed,  and 
was  therewith  stricken  with  paralysis,  and  so 
fell  sidelong  from  the  rocks  into  the  deep 
wave,  and  was  afterwards  found  beaten  as 
with  hammers  and  shredded  as  with  sharp 
fangs. 

But,  as  most  characteristic,  I  would  rather 
tell  here  the  story  of  Black  Angus,  though 
the  longer  tale  of  which  it  forms  a  part  has 
been  printed  before. 

One  night,  a  dark  rainy  night  it  was,  with 

64 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

an  uplift  wind  battering  as  with  the  palms  of 
savage  hands  the  heavy  clouds  that  hid  the 
moon,  I  went  to  the  cottage  near  Spanish 
Port,  where  my  friend  Ivor  Maclean  lived 
with  his  old  deaf  mother.  He  had  reluct- 
antly promised  to  tell  me  the  legend  of  Black 
Angus,  a  request  he  had  ignored  in  a  sullen 
silence  when  he  and  Padruic  Macrae  and  I 
were  on  the  Sound  that  day.  No  tales  of 
the  kind  should  be  told  upon  the  water. 

When  I  entered,  he  was  sitting  before  the 
flaming  coal-fire ;  for  on  lona  now,  by  decree 
of  MacCailein  Mor,  there  is  no  more  peat 
burned. 

"You  will  tell  me  now,  Ivor?"  was  all  I 
said. 

"  Yes ;  I  will  be  telling  you  now.  And  the 
reason  why  I  did  not  tell  you  before  was 
because  it  is  not  a  wise  or  a  good  thing  to 
tell  ancient  stories  about  the  sea  while  still 
on  the  running  wave.  Macrae  should  not 
have  done  that  thing.  It  may  be  we  shall 
suffer  for  it  when  next  we  go  out  with  the 
nets.  We  were  to  go  to-night ;  but  no,  not 
I,  no,  no,  for  sure,  not  for  all  the  herring  in 
the  Sound." 

"  Is  it  an  ancient  sgetd,  Ivor  ? " 

"  Ay.  I  am  not  for  knowing  the  age  of 
these  things.  It  may  be  as  old  as  the  days 
of  the  Feinn,  for  all  I  know.     It  has  come 


65 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

down  to  US.  Alasdair  MacAlasdair  of  Tiree, 
him  that  used  to  boast  of  having  all  the 
stories  of  Colum  and  Brigdhe,  it  was  he  told 
it  to  the  mother  of  my  mother,  and  she  to 
me." 

"  What  is  it  called  ?  " 

"  Well,  this  and  that ;  but  there  is  no 
harm  in  saying  it  is  called  the  Dark  Name- 
less One." 

"  The  Dark  Nameless  One  !  " 

"  It  is  this  way.  But  will  you  ever  have 
heard  of  the  MacOdrums  of  Uist  ? " 

"Ay;  the  Sliochd-nan-r6n." 

"That  is  so.  God  knows.  The  Sliochd- 
nan-r6n  .  .  .  the  progeny  of  the  Seal.  .  .  . 
Well,  well,  no  man  knows  what  moves  in  the 
shadow  of  life.  And  now  I  will  be  telling 
you  that  old  ancient  tale,  as  it  was  given  to 
me  by  the  mother  of  my  mother." 

XVI 

On  a  day  of  the  days,  Colum 

was  walking  alone  by  the  sea-shore.  The 
monks  were  at  the  hoe  or  the  spade,  and 
some  milking  the  kye,  and  some  at  the  fish- 
ing. They  say  it  was  on  the  first  day  of 
the  Faoilleack  Geamhraid/t,  the  day  that  is 
called  Am  Fheill  Brighde,  and  that  they  call 
Candlemas  over  yonder. 

66 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

The  holy  man  had  wandered  on  to  where 
the  rocks  are,  opposite  to  Soa.  He  was 
praying  and  praying ;  and  it  is  said  that 
whenever  he  prayed  aloud,  the  barren  egg  in 
the  nest  would  quicken,  and  the  blighted  bud 
unfold,  and  the  butterfly  break  its  shroud. 

Of  a  sudden  he  came  upon  a  great  black 
seal,  lying  silent  on  the  rocks,  with  wicked 
eyes. 

"  My  blessing  upon  you,  O  Rin,"  he  said, 
with  the  good  kind  courteousness  that  was 
his.  "  Droch  spadadk  ort"  answered  the  seal, 
"  A  bad  end  to  you,  Colum  of  the  Gown." 

"  Sure  now,"  said  Colum  angrily,  "  I  am 
knowing  by  that  curse  that  you  are  no  friend 
of  Christ,  but  of  the  evil  pagan  faith  out  of 
the  north.  For  here  I  am  known  ever  as 
Colum  the  White,  or  as  Colum  the  Saint; 
and  it  is  only  the  Picts  and  the  wanton  Nor- 
men  who  deride  me  because  of  the  holy 
white  robe  I  wear." 

"  Well,  well,"  replied  the  seal,  speaking 
the  good  Gaelic  as  though  it  were  the  tongue 
of  the  deep  sea,  as  God  knows  it  may  be  for 
all  you,  I,  or  the  blind  wind  can  say;  "well, 
well,  let  that  thing  be  :  it 's  a  wave-way  here 
or  a  wave-way  there.  But  now,  if  it  is  a 
druid  you  are,  whether  of  fire  or  of  Christ, 
be  telling  me  where  my  woman  is,  and  where 
my  little  daughter." 

67 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

At  this,  Colum  looked  at  him  for  a  long 
while.     Then  he  knew. 

"  It  is  a  man  you  were  once,  O  R6n  ?" 

"  Maybe  ay  and  maybe  no." 

"  And  with  that  thick  Gaelic  that  you  have, 
it  will  be  out  of  the  north  isles  you  come  ? " 

"  That  is  a  true  thing." 

"  Now  I  am  for  knowing  at  last  who  and 
what  you  are.  You  are  one  of  the  race  of 
Odrum  the  Pagan  ?  " 

"  Well,  I  am  not  denying  it,  Colum.  And 
what  is  more,  I  am  Angus  MacOdrum,  Aon- 
ghas  mac  Torcall  mhic  Odrum,  and  the  name 
I  am  known  by  is  Black  Angus." 

"A  fitting  name  too,"  said  Colum  the 
Holy,  "because  of  the  black  sin  in  your 
heart,  and  the  black  end  God  has  in  store 
for  you." 

At  that  Black  Angus  laughed. 

"  Why  is  laughter  upon  you,  Man-Seal  ?" 

"  W^ell,  it  is  because  of  the  good  company 
I  '11  be  having.  But,  now,  give  me  the  word : 
Are  you  for  having  seen  or  heard  of  a  woman 
called  Kirsteen  Mc.Vurich  ?  " 

"  Kirsteen  —  Kirsteen  —  that  is  the  good 
name  of  a  nun  it  is,  and  no  sea-wanton  1 " 

"  Oh,  a  name  here  or  a  name  there  is  soft 
sand.  And  so  you  cannot  be  for  telling  me 
where  my  woman  is  ?  " 

"  No." 


68 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

"Then  a  stake  for  your  belly,  and  nails 
through  your  hands,  thirst  on  your  tongue, 
and  the  corbies  at  your  eyne !  " 

And,  with  that,  Black  Angus  louped  into 
the  green  water,  and  the  hoarse  wild  laugh 
of  him  sprang  into  the  air  and  fell  dead  upon 
the  shore  like  a  wind-spent  mew. 

Colum  went  slowly  back  to  the  brethren, 
brooding  deep.  "  God  is  good,"  he  said  in 
a  low  voice,  again  and  again ;  and  each  time 
that  he  spoke  there  came  a  daisy  into  the 
grass,  or  a  bird  rose,  with  song  to  it  for 
the  first  time,  wonderful  and  sweet  to  hear. 

As  he  drew  near  to  the  House  of  God  he 
met  Murtagh,  an  old  monk  of  the  ancient 
race  of  the  isles. 

"  Who  is  Kirsteen  Mc.Vurich,  Murtagh  ?  " 
he  asked. 

"  She  was  a  good  servant  of  Christ,  she 
was,  in  the  south  isles,  O  Colum,  till  Black 
Angus  won  her  to  the  sea." 

"  And  when  was  that  ?  " 

"  Nigh  upon  a  thousand  years  ago." 

"  But  can  mortal  sin  live  as  long  as  that  ?  " 

"  Ay,  it  endureth.  Long,  long  ago,  before 
Oisln  sang,  before  Fionn,  before  Cuchullin 
was  a  glorious  great  prince,  and  in  the  days 
when  the  Tuatha-de-Danann  were  sole  lords 
in  all  green  Banba,  Black  Angus  made  the 
woman  Kirsteen  Mc.Vurich  leave  the  place 


69 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

of  prayer  and  go  down  to  the  sea-shore,  and 
there  he  leaped  upon  her  and  made  her  his 
prey,  and  she  followed  him  into  the  sea." 

"  And  is  death  above  her  now  ?  " 

"  No.  She  is  the  woman  that  weaves  the 
sea-spells  at  the  wild  place  out  yonder  that 
is  known  as  Earraid :  she  that  is  called  the 
sea-witch." 

"  Then  why  was  Black  Angus  for  the 
seeking  her  here  and  the  seeking  her  there  ? " 

"  It  is  the  Doom.  It  is  Adam's  first  wife 
she  is,  that  sea-witch  over  there,  where  the 
foam  is  ever  in  the  sharp  fangs  of  the  rocks." 

"  And  who  will  he  be  ? " 

"  His  body  is  the  body  of  Angus,  the  son 
of  Torcall  of  the  race  of  Odrum,  for  all  that 
a  seal  he  is  to  the  seeming;  but  the  soul  of 
him  is  Judas." 

"  Black  Judas,  Murtagh  ?  " 

"Ay,  Black  Judas,  Colum." 


But  with  that,  Ivor  Macrae  rose  abruptly 
from  before  the  fire,  saying  that  he  would 
speak  no  more  that  night.  And  truly  enough 
there  was  a  wild,  lone,  desolate  cry  in  the 
wind,  and  a  slapping  of  the  waves  one  upon 
the  other  with  an  eerie  laughing  sound,  and 
the  screaming  of  a  seamew  that  was  like  a 
human  thing. 


70 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

So  I  touched  the  shawl  of  his  mother,  who 
looked  up  with  startled  eyes  and  said,  "  God 
be  with  us ; "  and  then  I  opened  the  door, 
and  the  salt  smell  of  the  wrack  was  in  my 
nostrils,  and  the  great  drow'ning  blackness 
of  the  night. 

XVII 

One  day  in  an  early  year,  that  was  certainly 
not  later  than  my  ninth,  I  had  on  lona  a 
singular  instance  of  what  is  called  second- 
sight,  though  indirectly,  for  only  the  narration 
of  it  came  to  me,  and  that  some  time  after 
the  occurrences  related.  On  a  late  autumn 
afternoon  the  Oban  steamer  coming  from 
Tiree  put  in  at  the  haven,  but  only  one 
passenger  alighted  in  the  ferry-boat,  Mac- 
Donald,  the  then  ferryman,  noticed  that 
the  stranger  was  a  poor  man  and  that  the 
little  luggage  he  had  was  done  up  in  a  red 
bandana  handkerchief.  He  tried  the  man 
in  the  Gaelic,  but  got  no  answer,  and  that 
surprised  him,  for  he  was  certain  he  had 
heard  the  mate  of  the  steamer,  or  if  not  the 
mate  some  other,  speak  to  the  man  in  Gaelic 
just  before  he  came  over  the  side  of  the 
vessel,  and  that  he  had  answered  in  the  old 
speech.  Then  MacDonald  spoke  in  English, 
and  asked  him  if  he  had  been  on  the  island 
before. 


71 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

"  No,"  he  said,  "  and  I  hope  never  to  see 
it  or  Scotland  again.  I  am  from  New 
Zealand,"  he  added,  "and  in  a  week  from 
now  I  '11  be  on  the  ship  that  will  be  taking 
me  there." 

When  the  ferrj'-boat  came  to  the  little 
stone  pier  the  stranger  asked  the  way  to  the 
house  where  Mary  Macallum  lived. i 

"  What  Mary  Macallum  ?  "  asked  Mac- 
Donald. 

"  This  Mary  Macallum,"  said  the  stranger, 
showing  a  tinted  photograph  on  a  porcelain 
medallion.  MacDonald  recognised  the  face 
at  once,  and  directed  the  man  to  the  farm- 
house where  a  single-woman  of  that  name 
lived  since  her  father  and  mother  had  left 
her  their  all.  When  the  man  stood  in  the 
doorway,  the  woman,  who  was  peeling  pota- 
toes, gave  a  cry,  and  went  yellow-white  as 
clotted  foam. 

"  Is  Seumas  (James)  dead  ?  "  she  cried  in 
Gaelic. 

"  That  is  so,"  said  the  man  in  Gaelic  too, 
"and  by  the  same  token  I've  brought  you 
this.  And  before  he  died  James  Macarthur 
said  to  me,  take  this  to  Mary  Macallum  on 
Zona,  and  say  to  her  that  if  I  thought  she  'd 

I  The  name  is  at  random.  I  do  not  recollect  the 
actual  name.     And  so  again  with  Neil  Stewart. 


72 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

have  you  instead  then  it  's  dying  happy  I 
should  be." 

The  woman  looked  at  him,  like  as  though 
dazed. 

"  What  is  it,"  he  said,  "what  is  the  matter 
with  you,  woman  ?  " 

Then  the  dream  went  out  of  her  eyes,  and 
her  white  face  grew  like  a  rock  for  hardness, 
but  a  rock  on  fire. 

"  And  what  will  your  name  be  ? "  she 
asked. 

"Neil  Stewart,"  he  said:  "Neil  Stewart, 
out  of  Appin  in  Argyll." 

"  And  do  you  know  what  I  see  behind 
you,  Neil  Stewart  ?  " 

The  man  gave  a  start,  and  looked  behind 
him. 

"  And  what  will  that  be  ? "  he  asked 
uneasily. 

"  It 's  a  dream  I  've  had  three  times,  an'  I 
see  it  all  over  again  as  I  look  at  you,  Neil 
Stewart.  I  see  a  field  of  the  dead  and 
wounded,  with  a  few  men  on  horses,  riding 
away,  and  others,  further  off,  looking  about 
them.  And  broken  guns.  And  among  the 
dead  and  wounded  in  the  sand,  for  it  is  all 
sand  there,  I  see  dark-skinned  men  too,  but 
they  are  all  dead.  And  at  that  fall  of  sand 
yonder,  a  few  yards  from  the  upside-down  gun 
sticking  in  the  sand  I  see  Seumas  Macarthur 


73 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

lying  faint  to  death,  but  struggling  hard  to 
get  the  water-bottle  from  out  below  his 
broken  arm.  And  what  do  I  see  next,  Neil 
Stewart  .  .  .  ah,  you  needn't  be  so  white 
and  scared,  I  'm  only  a  woman  ye  ken,  Neil 
Stewart  out  of  Appin  in  Argyll !  .  .  .  what 
do  I  see  next  ?  I  see  a  man  that  looks  singu- 
lar like  Neil  Stewart  out  of  Appin  in  Argyll 
crawling  towards  my  man,  an'  snatchin'  the 
water-bottle  from  him  an'  drinkin'  every  drop 
left  in  it,  an'  then  striking  my  man  on  the 
head  with  it,  an'  then  feeling  in  his  pock- 
ets, and  taking  out  of  the  one  the  little  sil- 
ver there  is  an'  some  strange  coins,  and 
from  the  other  a  letter,  an'  this  portrait 
here  tied  by  a  red  string  through  the  top 
buttonhole  of  his  flannel  shirt.     And  now, 

Neil  Stewart  out  of  Appin  in  Argyll,  I 

But  at  that  the  man  gave  a  skreich  like  a 
herring-gull,  and  his  face  grew  dark  and  foam 
blew  from  his  mouth  and  he  fell  forward  in 
a  swoon  of  death.  And  true  enough  he  died 
of  an  apoplexy  there  and  then.  And  it  was 
all  true,  every  word  of  it.  For  when  less 
than  a  month  later  James  Macarthur  came 
back  to  lona  to  seek  out  Mary  Macallum, 
for  all  he  had  but  one  arm  now  after  that 
fierce  fight  at  dawn  in  the  sands  of  Egypt,  he 
bore  out  every  word  that  Mary  had  uttered, 
she  with  her  dreams  behind  her  and  her 


74 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

vision  before  her,  when  the  man  Stewart 
stood  before  her  like  a  dread  phantom  of 
sleep. 

XVIII 

For  one  thing  of  great  Gaelic  import, 
Columba  has  been  given  a  singular  preemi- 
nence—  not  for  his  love  of  country,  pride  of 
race,  passionate  loyalty  to  his  clan,  to  every 
blood-claim  and  foster-claim,  and  friendship- 
claim,  though  in  all  this  he  was  the  very 
archetype  of  the  clannish  Gael  —  but  because 
(so  it  is  averred)  he  was  the  first  of  our 
race  of  whom  is  recorded  the  systematic  use 
of  this  strange  gift  of  spiritual  foresight, 
"second-sight."  It  has  been  stated  authori- 
tatively that  he  is  the  first  of  whom  there  is 
record  as  having  possessed  this  faculty  ;  but 
that  could  only  be  averred  by  one  ignorant 
of  ancient  Gaelic  literature.  Even  in  Adam- 
nan's  chronicle,  written  some  seventy  years 
after  the  death  of  Columba,  there  is  record 
of  others  having  this  faculty,  apart  from  the 
perhaps  more  purely  spiritual  vision  of  his 
mother  Aithne,  when  an  angel  raimented  her 
with  the  beauty  of  her  unborn  son,  or  of  his 
foster-father,  the  priest  Cruithnechan,  who 
saw  the  singular  light  of  the  soul  about  his 
sleeping  pupil,  or  of  the  abbot  Brendan  who 
redeemed  the  saint  from  excommunication 


75 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

and  perhaps  death  by  his  vision  of  him 
advancing  with  a  pillar  of  fire  before  him  and 
an  angel  on  either  side.  (When,  long  years 
afterwards,  Brendan  died  in  Ireland,  Colum 
in  lona  startled  his  monks  by  calling  for 
an  immediate  celebration  of  the  Eucharist, 
because  it  had  been  revealed  to  him  that  St. 
Brendan  had  gone  to  the  heavenly  fatherland 
yesternight :  "  Angels  came  to  meet  his  soul : 
I  saw  the  whole  earth  illumined  with  their 
glory.")  Among  others  there  is  the  story  of 
Abbot  Kenneth,  who,  sitting  at  supper,  rose 
so  suddenly  as  to  leave  without  his  sandals, 
and  at  the  altar  of  his  church  prayed  for 
Colum,  at  that  moment  in  dire  peril  upon 
the  sea :  the  story  of  Ernan,  who,  fishing  in 
the  river  Fenda,  saw  the  death  of  Colum  in  a 
symbol  of  flame :  the  story  of  Lugh  mac 
Tailchan,  who,  at  Cloinfinchoi!,  beheld  lona 
(which  he  had  never  visited),  and  above  it 
a  blaze  of  angels'  wings,  and  Colum's  soul. 
In  the  most  ancient  tales  there  is  frequent 
allusion  to  what  we  call  second-sight.  The 
writer  alluded  to  could  not  have  heard 
of  the  warning  of  the  dread  Mor-Rigan  to 
Cuchulain  before  the  fatal  strife  of  the  Tain- 
B6-Cuailgne;  or  Cuchulain's  own  pre-vision 
(among  a  score  as  striking)  of  the  hostings  and 
gatherings  on  the  fatal  plain  of  Muirthemne ; 
or  the  Amazonian  queen,  Scathach's,  fore- 

76 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

knowledge  of  the  career  and  early  death  of 
the  champion  of  the  Gaels : 

"  (At  the  last)  great  peril  awaits  thee     .     .     . 
Alone  against  a  vast  herd  : 
Thirty  years  I  reckon  the  length  of  thy  years 

(literally,  the  strength  of  thy  valour) ; 
Further  than  this  I  do  not  add  ;  " 

or  of  Deirdre's  second-sight,  when  by  the 
white  cairn  on  Sliav  Fuad  she  saw  the  sons 
of  Usna  headless,  and  lllann  the  Fair  head- 
less too,  but  Buimne  the  Ruthless  Red  with 
his  head  upon  his  shoulders,  smiling  a  grim 
smile  —  when  she  saw  over  Naois,  her  be- 
loved, a  cloud  of  blood  —  or  that,  alas,  too 
bitter-true  a  foreseeing,  when  in  the  Craebh 
Derg,  the  House  of  the  Red  Branch,  she 
cried  to  her  lover  and  his  two  brothers  that 
death  was  at  the  door  and  "grievous  to  me 
is  the  deed,  O  darling  friends  —  and  till  the 
world's  end  Emain  will  not  be  better  for  a 
single  night  than  it  is  to-night."  Or,  again, 
of  that  pathetic,  simultaneous  death-vision 
of  Baile  the  Sweet-Spoken  and  Aillinn,  he  in 
the  north,  she  in  the  south,  so  that  each  out 
of  a  grief  unbearable  straightway  died,  as 
told  in  one  of  the  oldest  as  well  as  loveliest 
of  ancient  Gaelic  tales,  the  Scil  Baili  Binn- 
berlaig. 

There  is  something  strangely  beautiful  in 


77 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

most  of  these  "  second-sight "  stories  of 
Columba.  The  faculty  itself  is  so  apt  to  the 
spiritual  law  that  one  wonders  why  it  is  so 
set  apart  in  doubt.  It  would,  I  think,  be  far 
stranger  if  there  were  no  such  faculty. 

That  I  believe,  it  were  needless  to  say, 
were  it  not  that  these  words  may  be  read  by 
many  to  whom  this  quickened  inward  vision 
is  a  superstition,  or  a  fantastic  glorification 
of  insight.  I  believe ;  not  only  because  there 
is  nothing  too  strange  for  the  soul,  whose 
vision  surely  I  will  not  deny,  while  I  accept 
what  is  lesser,  the  mind's  prescience,  and,  what 
is  least,  the  testimony  of  the  eyes.  That  I 
have  cause  to  believe  is  perhaps  too  personal 
a  statement,  and  is  of  little  account;  but  in 
that  interior  wisdom,  which  is  no  longer  the 
flicker  of  one  little  green  leaf  but  the  light 
and  sound  of  a  forest,  of  which  the  leaf  is  a 
part,  I  know  that  to  be  true,  which  I  should 
as  soon  doubt  as  that  the  tide  returns  or  that 
the  sap  rises  or  that  dawn  is  a  ceaseless 
flashing  light  beneath  the  circuit  of  the  stars. 
Spiritual  logic  demands  it. 

It  would  ill  become  me  to  do  otherwise. 
I  would  as  little,  however,  deny  that  this 
inward  vision  is  sometimes  imperfect  and 
untrustworthy,  as  I  would  assert  that  it  is 
infallible.  There  is  no  common  face  of  good 
or  evil;   and  in  like  fashion  the  aspect  of 


78 


THE    ISLE   OF   DREAMS 

this  so-called  mystery  is  variable  as  the  lives 
of  those  in  whom  it  dwells.  With  some  it 
is  a  prescience,  more  akin  to  instinct  than  to 
reason,  and  obtains  only  among  the  lesser 
possibilities,  as  when  one  beholds  another 
where  in  the  body  none  is ;  or  a  scene  not 
possible,  there,  in  that  place ;  or  a  face,  a 
meeting  of  shadows,  a  disclosure  of  hazard 
or  accident,  a  coming  into  view  of  happen- 
ings not  yet  fulfilled.  With  some  it  is  simply 
a  larger  sight,  more  wide,  more  deep;  not 
habitual,  because  there  is  none  of  us  who  is 
not  subject  to  the  law  of  the  body ;  and 
sudden,  because  all  tense  vision  is  a  passion 
of  the  moment.  It  is  as  the  lightning,  whose 
sustenance  is  sure  for  all  that  it  has  a  second's 
life.  With  a  few  it  is  a  more  constant  com- 
panion, a  dweller  by  the  morning  thought, 
by  the  noon  reverie,  by  the  evening  dream. 
It  lies  upon  the  pillow  for  some;  to  some  it 
is  as  though  the  wind  disclosed  pathways  of 
the  air;  a  swaying  branch,  a  dazzle  on  the 
wave,  the  quick  recognition  in  unfamiliar 
eyes,  is,  for  others,  sufficient  signal.  Not 
that  these  accidents  of  the  manner  need 
concern  us  much.  We  have  the  faculty,  or 
we  do  not  have  it.  Nor  must  we  forget  that 
it  can  be  the  portion  of  the  ignoble  as  well 
as  of  those  whose  souls  are  clear.  When  it 
is  in  truth  a  spiritual  vision,  then  we  are  in 


79 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

company  of  what  is  the  essential  life,  that 
which  we  call  divine. 

XIX 

It  was  this  that  Columba  had,  this  serene 
perspicuity.  That  it  was  a  conscious  posses- 
sion we  know  from  his  own  words,  for  he 
gave  this  answer  to  one  who  marvelled : 
"  Heaven  has  granted  to  some  to  see  on 
occasion  in  their  mind,  clearly  and  surely, 
the  whole  of  earth  and  sea  and  sky." 

It  is  not  unlikely  that  in  the  seventy  years 
which  elapsed  between  Colum's  death  and 
the  writing  of  that  lovely  classic  of  the 
Church,  Adamnan's  Vita  St.  Colittnbae,  some 
stories  grew  around  the  saint's  memory  which 
were  rather  the  tribute  of  childlike  reverence 
and  love  than  the  actual  experiences  of  the 
holy  man  himself.  What  then  .''  A  field  in 
May  is  not  the  less  a  daughter  of  Spring, 
because  the  cowslip-wreaths  found  there  may 
have  been  brought  from  little  wayward 
garths  by  children  who  wove  them  lovingly 
as  they  came. 

Many  of  these  strange  records  are  mere 
coincidences ;  others  reveal  so  happy  a  surety 
in  the  simple  faith  of  the  teller  that  we  need 
only  smile,  and  with  no  more  resentment 
than  at  a  child  who  runs  to  say  he  has  found 
stars  in  a  wayside  pool.     Others  are  rather 

80 


THE    ISI.E    OF    DREAMS 

the  keen  insight  of  a  ceaseless  observation 
than  the  seeing  of  an  inward  sense.  But, 
and  perhaps  oftener,  they  are  not  inherently 
incredible.  I  do  not  think  our  forebears  did 
ill  to  give  haven  to  these  little  ones  of  faith, 
rather  than  to  despise,  or  to  drive  them  away. 
I  have  already  spoken  of  Columba  as 
another  St.  Francis,  because  of  his  tender- 
ness for  creatures.  I  recall  now  the  lovely 
legend  (for  I  do  not  think  Colum  himself 
attributed  "second-sight"  to  an  animal) 
which  tells  how  the  old  white  pony  which 
daily  brought  the  milk  from  the  cow-shed  to 
the  monastery  came  and  put  its  head  in  the 
lap  of  the  aged  and  feeble  abbot,  thus  mutely 
to  bid  farewell.  Let  Adamnan  tell  it :  "  This 
creature  then  coming  up  to  the  saint,  and 
knowing  that  his  master  would  soon  depart 
from  him,  and  that  he  would  see  his  face  no 
more,  began  to  utter  plaintive  moans,  and,  as 
if  a  man,  to  shed  tears  in  abundance  into 
the  saint's  lap,  and  so  to  weep,  frothing 
greatly.  Which  when  the  attendant  saw,  he 
began  to  drive  away  that  weeping  mourner. 
But  the  saint  forbade  him,  saying,  '  Let  him 
alone  1  As  he  loves  me  so,  let  him  alone, 
that  into  this  my  bosom  he  may  pour  out 
the  tears  of  his  most  bitter  lamentation. 
Behold,  thou,  a  man,  that  hast  a  soul,  yet  in 
no  way  hast  knowledge  of  my  end  save  what 

Si 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

I  have  myself  shown  thee ;  but  to  this  brute 
animal  the  Master  Himself  hath  revealed 
that  his  master  is  about  to  go  away  from 
him.'  And  so  saying,  he  blessed  his  sorrow- 
ing servant  the  horse." 

If  there  be  any  to  whom  the  aged  Colum 
comforting  the  grief  of  his  old  white  pony  is 
a  matter  of  disdain  or  derision,  I  would  not 
have  his  soul  in  exchange  for  the  dumb 
sorrow  of  that  creature.  One  would  fare 
further  with  that  sorrow,  though  soulless, 
than  with  the  soul  that  could  not  understand 
that  sorrow. 

If  one  were  to  quote  from  Adamnan's 
three  Books  of  the  Prophecies,  Miracles,  and 
Visions  of  Columba,  there  would  be  another 
book.  Amid  much  that  is  childlike,  and  a 
little  that  is  childish,  what  store  of  spiritual 
beauty  and  living  symbol  in  these  three 
books  —  the  Book  of  Prophetic  Revelations, 
the  Book  of  Miracles  of  Power,  the  Book  of 
Angelic  Visitations.  But  there,  as  elsewhere, 
one  must  bear  in  remembrance  that,  in  spir- 
itual sight,  there  is  symbolic  vision  as  well  as 
actual  vision.  When  Colum  saw  his  friend 
Columbanus  (who,  unknown  to  any  on  lona, 
had  set  out  in  his  frail  coracle  from  the  Isle 
of  Rathlin)  tossed  in  the  surges  of  Corryvre- 
chan ;  or  when,  nigh  Glen  Urquhart,  he 
hurried  forward  to  minister  to  an  old  dying 

82 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

Pict  "who  had  lived  well  by  the  light  of 
nature,"  and  whose  house,  condition,  and 
end  had  been  suddenly  revealed  to  him : 
then  we  have  actual  vision.  When  Aithne, 
his  mother,  dreamed  that  an  angel  showed 
her  a  garment  of  so  surpassing  a  loveliness 
that  it  was  as  though  woven  of  flowers  and 
rainbows,  and  then  threw  it  on  high,  till  its 
folds  expanded  and  covered  every  mountain- 
top  from  the  brows  of  Connaught  to  the 
feet  of  the  Danish  sea,  and  so  revealed  to 
her  what  manner  of  son  she  bore  within  her 
womb;  or  when,  in  the  hour  of  Colum's 
death,  the  aged  son  of  Tailchan  beheld  the 
whole  expanse  of  air  flooded  with  the  blaze 
of  angels'  wings,  which  trembled  with  their 
songs  :  then  we  have  symbolic  vision.  And 
sometimes  we  have  that  which  partakes  of 
each,  as  when  (as  Adamnan  tells  us  in  his 
third  book)  Colum  saw  angels  standing  upon 
the  rocks  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  Sound 
which  divides  lona  from  the  Ross  of  Mull, 
calling  to  his  soul  to  cross  to  them,  yet,  as 
they  assembled  and  beckoned,  mysteriously 
and  suddenly  restrained,  for  his  hour  was 
not  come. 

And  in  all  actual  vision  there  is  gradation ; 
from  what  is  so  common,  premonition,  to 
what  is  not  common,  prescience,  and  to  what 
is  rare,  revelation.     Thus  when  the  labourers 


83 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

on  lona  looked  up  from  the  fields  and  saw 
the  aged  abbot  whom  they  so  loved,  borne 
in  a  cart  to  give  them  benediction  at  seed- 
sowing,  many  among  them  knew  that  they 
would  not  see  Colum  again,  and  Colum 
knew  it,  and  so  shared  that  premonition. 
And  when,  many  years  before,  he  and  the 
abbot  Comgell,  returning  from  a  futile  con- 
ference of  the  kings  Aedh  and  Aidan,  rested 
by  a  spring,  concerning  which  Colum  said 
that  the  day  would  come  when  it  would 
be  filled  with  human  blood,  "because  my 
people,  the  Hy-Neill,  and  the  Pictish  folk, 
thy  relations  according  to  the  flesh,  will  wage 
war  by  this  fortress  of  Cethim  close  by," 
Comgell  learned,  through  Colum's  fore- 
knowledge, of  what  did  in  truth  come  to 
pass.  Again,  when  Colum  bade  a  brother 
go  three  days  thence  to  the  sea-shore  on  the 
west  side  of  lona,  and  lie  in  readiness  to 
help  "  a  certain  guest,  a  crane  to  wit,  beaten 
by  the  winds  during  long  and  circuitous  and 
aerial  flights,  which  will  arrive  after  the  ninth 
hour  of  the  day,  very  weary  and  sore  dis- 
tressed," and  bade  him  to  lift  it  and  tend  it 
lovingly  for  three  days  and  three  nights  till 
it  should  have  strength  to  return  to  "its 
former  sweet  home,"  and  to  do  this  out  of 
love  and  courtesy  because  "  it  comes  from 
our  fatherland  "  —  and  when  all  happens  and 


84 


THE   ISLE   OF   DREAMS 

is  done  as  the  saint  foretold  and  commanded, 
then  we  have  revelation,  the  vision  that  is 
absolute,  the  knowledge  that  is  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  inevitable.  It  would  take  a 
book  indeed  to  tell  all  the  stories  of  Colum- 
ba's  visionary  and  prophetic  powers.  That 
I  write  at  this  length  concerning  him,  indeed, 
is  because  he  is  himself  lona.  Columba  is 
Christian  lona,  as  much  as  lona  is  Icolmkill. 
I  have  often  wondered  (because  of  a  passage 
in  Adamnan)  if  the  island  be  not  indeed 
named  after  him,  the  Dove  :  for  as  Adamnan 
says  incidentally,  the  name  Columba  is  iden- 
tical with  the  Hebrew  name  Jonah,  also 
signifying  a  Dove,  and  by  the  Hebrews  pro- 
nounced lona. 

It  is  enough  now  to  recall  that  this  man, 
so  often  erring  but  so  human  always,  in 
whose  life  we  see  the  soul  of  lona  as  in  a 
glass,  is  become  the  archetype  of  his  race,  as 
lona  is  the  microcosm  of  the  Gaelic  world. 
That  he  came  into  this  life  heralded  by 
dreams  and  visions,  that  from  his  youth 
onward  to  old  age  he  knew  every  mystery  of 
dream  and  vision,  and  that  before  and  after 
his  death  his  soul  was  revealed  to  others 
through  dreams  and  visions,  is  but  an  added 
hieratic  grace  :  yet  we  do  well  to  recall  often 
how  these  dreams  before  and  these  visions 
after  were  angelical,  and  nobly  beautiful : 

85 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

how  there  was  left  of  him,  and  to  his  little 
company,  and  to  us  for  remembrance,  that 
last  signal  vision  of  a  blaze  of  angelic  wings, 
more  intolerable  than  the  sun  at  noon,  the 
tempestuous  multitude  trembling  with  the 
storm  of  song. 

XX 

One  day,  walking  by  a  reedy  lochan  on 
the  Ross  of  Mull,  not  far  inland  from 
Fionnaphort,  where  is  the  ferry  for  Baile 
Mor  of  lona,  I  met  an  old  man  who  seemed 
in  sorrow.  When  he  spoke  I  was  puzzled 
by  some  words  which  were  not  native  there, 
and  then  I  learned  that  he  had  long  lived  in 
Edinburgh  and  later  in  Dunfermline,  and 
in  his  work  had  associated  with  Hollanders 
and  others  of  the  east  seas. 

He  had  come  back,  in  his  old  age,  to  "  see 
the  place  of  his  two  loves"  —  the  hamlet  in 
Earraid,  where  his  old  mother  had  blessed 
him  "forty  year  back,"  and  the  little  farm 
where  Jean  Cameron  had  kissed  him  and 
promised  to  be  true.  He  had  gone  away  as 
a  soldier,  and  news  reached  them  of  his 
death  ;  and  when  he  came  out  of  the  Indies, 
and  went  up  Leith  Walk  to  the  great  post- 
house  in  Edinburgh,  it  was  to  learn  that  the 
Earraid  cottage  was  empty,  and  that  Jean 
was  no  longer  Jean  Cameron. 


86 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

There  was  not  a  touch  of  bitterness  in  the 
old  man's  words.  "  It  was  my  name,  for  one 
thing,"  he  said  simply:  "you  see,  there  's 
many  a  *  J.  Macdonald '  in  the  Highland 
regiments ;  and  the  mistake  got  about  that 
way.  No,  no  —  the  dear  lass  wasna  to 
blame.  And  I  never  lost  her  love.  When 
I  found  out  where  she  was  I  went  to  see  her 
once  more,  and  to  tell  her  I  understood,  and 
loved  her  all  the  same.  It  was  hard,  in  a 
way,  when  I  found  she  had  made  a  loveless 
marriage,  but  human  nature  's  human  nature, 
and  I  could  not  but  be  proud  and  glad  that 
she  had  nane  but  puir  Jamie  Macdonald  in 
her  heart.  I  told  her  I  would  be  true  to  her, 
and  since  she  was  poor,  would  help  her,  an' 
wi'  God's  kindness  true  I  was,  an'  helped  her 
too.  For  her  man  did  an  awfu'  business  one 
day,  and  was  sentenced  for  life.  She  had 
three  bairns.  Well,  I  keepit  her  an'  them  — 
though  I  ne'er  saw  them  but  once  in  the  year, 
for  she  had  come  back  to  the  west,  her  heart 
brast  with  the  towns.  First  one  bairn  died, 
then  another.     Then  Jean  died." 

The  old  man  resumed  suddenly  :  "  I  had 
put  all  my  savings  into  the  Grand  North 
Bank.  When  that  failed  I  had  nothing,  for 
with  the  little  that  was  got  back  I  bought  a 
good  'prenticeship  for  Jean's  eldest.  Since 
then  I  've  lived  by  odd  jobs.     But  I  'm  old 

87 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

now,  and  broke.  Every  day  an'  every  night 
I  think  o'  them  two,  my  mother  an'  Jean." 

"  She  must  have  been  a  leal  fine  woman," 
I  said,  but  in  Gaelic.  With  a  flash  he  looked 
at  me,  and  then  said  slowly,  as  if  remember- 
ing, " Eudail  de  mhnathan  an  domhain" 
"  Treasure  of  all  the  women  in  the  world." 

I  have  often  thought  of  old  "  Jamie  Mac- 
donald  "  since.  How  wonderful  is  deep  love  ! 
This  man  was  loyal  to  his  love  in  long 
absence,  and  was  not  less  loyal  when  he 
found  that  she  was  the  wife  of  another;  and 
gave  up  thought  of  home  and  comfort  and 
companion-ship,  so  that  he  might  make  life 
more  easy  for  her  and  the  children  that  were 
not  his.  He  had  no  outer  reward  for  this, 
nor  looked  for  any. 

He  had  become  a  "  Methody,"  and 
preached;  so  I  was  told  of  him  contemptu- 
ously, afterward.  I  would  have  liked  to  hear 
James  Macdonald  preach.  The  words  might 
have  been  uncouth,  but  not  the  spirit. 

We  crossed  to  Balliemore  together,  and 
when  I  came  upon  him  next  day  by  the 
Reilig  Odhran,  I  asked  him  what  he  thought 
of  lona. 

He  looked  at  the  grey  worn  stones,  "  the 
stairway  of  the  Kings,"  the  tombs,  the  carved 
crosses,  the  grey  ruin  of  the  wind-harried 
cathedral,  and  with  a  wave  of  his  hand,  said 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

simply,  "  Comunn  mo  ghaoil"  "  'Tis  a  com- 
panionship after  my  heart." 

I  do  not  doubt  that  the  old  man  went  on 
his  way  comforted  by  the  grey  silence  and 
grey  beauty  of  this  ancient  place,  and  that 
he  found  in  lona  what  would  be  near  him 
for  the  rest  of  his  days. 

.       XXI 

Once  when  I  was  sailing  to  Tiree,  I  stopped 
at  lona,  and  went  to  see  an  old  woman  named 
Giorsal.  She  was  of  my  own  people,  and, 
not  being  lona-bom,  the  islanders  called  her 
the  foreigner.  She  had  a  daughter  named 
Elasaidh,  or  Elsie  as  it  is  generally  given  in 
English,  and  I  wanted  to  see  her  even  more 
than  the  old  woman. 

"  Where  is  Elsie  ?  "  I  asked,  after  our 
greetings  were  done. 

Giorsal  looked  at  me  sidelong,  and  then 
shifted  the  kettle,  and  busied  herself  with 
the  teapot. 

I  repeated  the  question. 

"  She  is  gone,"  the  old  woman  said,  with- 
out looking  at  me. 

"  Gone  ?     Where  has  she  gone  to  ?  " 

"  I  might  as  w^ell  ask  you  to  tell  me  that." 

"  Is  she  married  .  .  .  had  she  a  lover 
...  or  ...  or  ...  do  you  mean  that 
she    .    .    .   that  you    .    .    .    have  lost  her?" 


89 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

"  She  's  gone.  That  's  all  I  know.  But 
she  isn't  married,  so  far  as  I  know :  and  I 
never  knew  any  man  she  fancied:  and 
neither  I  nor  any  other  on  lona  has  seen 
her  dead  body;  and  by  St.  Martin's  Cross, 
neither  I  nor  any  other  saw  her  leave  the 
island.     And  that  was  more  than  a  year  ago." 

"  But,  Giorsal,  she  must  have  left  lona 
and  gone  to  Mull,  or  maybe  gone  away  in  a 
steamer,  or " 

"  It  was  in  midwinter,  and  when  a  heavy  gale 
was  tearing  through  the  Sound.  There  was 
no  steamer  and  no  boat  that  day.  There  isn't 
a  boat  of  lona  that  could  have  taken  the  sea 
that  day.  And  no  —  Elsie  wasna  drowned. 
I  see  that 's  what 's  in  your  mind.  She  just 
went  out  o'  the  house  again  cryin'.  I  asked 
her  what  was  wrong  wi'  her.  She  turned  an' 
smiled,  an'  because  o'  that  witherin'  smile  I 
couldna  say  a  word.  She  went  up  behind 
the  Ruins,  and  no  one  saw  her  after  that  but 
Ian  Donn.  He  saw  her  among  the  bulrushes 
in  the  swamp  over  by  Staonaig.  She  was 
laughing  an'  talking  to  the  reeds,  or  to  the 
wind  in  the  reeds.     So  Ian  Donn  says." 

"  And  what  do  you  say,  Giorsal  ?  " 

The  old  woman  went  to  the  door,  looked 
out,  and  closed  it.  When  she  returned,  she 
put  another  bit  on  the  fire,  and  kept  her  gaze 
on  the  red  glow. 


90 


THE   ISLE   OK    DREAMS 

"  Do  you  know  much  about  them  old  lona 
monks  ?  "  she  asked  abruptly. 

"  What  old  monks  ?  " 

"  Them  as  they  call  the  Culdees.  You 
used  to  be  askin'  lots  o'  questions  about 
them.  Ay  ?  well  .  .  .  they  aye  hated  folk 
from  the  North,  an'  women-folk  above  all." 

I  waited,  silent. 

"  And  Elsie,  poor  lass,  she  hated  them  in 
turn.  She  was  all  for  the  wild  clansmen  out 
o'  Skye  and  the  Long  Island.  She  said  she 
wished  the  Siol  Leoid  had  come  to  lona 
before  Colum  built  the  big  church.  And  for 
why  ?  Well,  there  's  this,  for  one  thing : 
For  months  a  monk  had  come  to  her  o' 
nights  in  her  sleep,  and  said  he  would  kill 
her,  because  she  was  a  heathen.  She  went 
to  the  minister  at  last,  and  said  her  say.  He 
told  her  she  was  a  foolish  wench,  and  was 
sore  angry  with  her.  So  then  she  went  to 
old  Mary  Gillespie,  out  by  the  lochan  beyond 
Fionnaphort  on  the  Ross  yonder — her  that 
has  the  sight  an'  a  power  o'  the  old  wisdom. 
After  that  she  took  to  meeting  friends  in  the 
moonshine." 

"  Friends  ? " 

"Ay.  There  's  no  call  to  name  names. 
One  day  she  told  me  that  she  had  been 
bidden  to  go  over  to  them.  If  she  didn't, 
the  monks  would  kill  her,  they  said.     The 


91 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

monks  are  still  the  strongest  here,  they  told 
her,  or  she  me,  I  forget  which.  That  is, 
except  over  by  Staonaig.  Up  between  Sgeur 
lolaire  and  Cnoc  Druidean  there  's  a  path 
that  no  monk  can  go.  There,  in  the  old 
days,  they  burned  a  woman.  She  was  not  a 
woman,  but  they  thought  she  was.  She  was 
one  o'  the  Sorrows  of  the  Shee,  that  they 
put  out  to  suffer  for  them,  an'  get  the  mortal 
ill.  That 's  the  plague  to  them.  It 's  ill  to 
any  that  bruigs  harm  on  thevi.  That 's  why 
the  monks  arena  strong  over  by  Staonaig 
way.  But  I  told  my  girl  not  to  mind.  She 
was  safe  wi'  me,  I  said.  She  said  that  was 
true.  For  weeks  I  heard  no  more  o'  that 
monk.  One  night  Elsie  came  in  smiling  an' 
pluckin'  wild  roses.  '  Breisleach  !  '  I  cried, 
'what  's  the  meanin'  o'  roses  in  January?' 
She  looked  at  me,  frighted,  an'  said  nothin', 
but  threw  the  things  on  the  fire.  It  was 
next  day  she  went  away." 

"And " 

"  An'  that 's  all.  Here  's  the  tea.  Ay,  an' 
for  sure  here  's  my  good  man.  Whist,  now  1 
Rob,  do  you  see  who  's  here  ?  " 

XXII 

Nothing  is  more  strange  than  the  confused 
survival  of  legends  and  pagan  faiths  and 
early  Christian  beliefs,  such  as  may  be  found 


92 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

Still  in  some  of  the  isles.  A  Tiree  man, 
whom  I  met  some  time  ago  on  the  boat  that 
was  taking  us  both  to  the  west,  told  me 
there  's  a  story  that  Mary  Magdalene  lies  in 
a  cave  in  lona.  She  roamed  the  world  with 
a  blind  man  who  loved  her,  but  they  had  no 
sin.  One  day  they  came  to  Knoidart  in 
Argyll.  Mary  Magdalene's  first  husband 
had  tracked  her  there,  and  she  knew  that  he 
would  kill  the  blind  man.  So  she  bade  him 
lie  down  among  some  swine,  and  she  herself 
herded  them.  But  her  husband  came  and 
laughed  at  her.  ''That  is  a  fine  boar  you 
have  there,"  he  said.  Then  he  put  a  spear 
through  the  blind  man.  "  Now  I  will  take 
your  beautiful  hair,"  he  said.  He  did  this, 
and  went  away.  She  wept  till  she  died. 
One  of  Colum's  monks  found  her,  and  took 
her  to  lona,  and  she  was  buried  in  a  cave. 
No  one  but  Colum  knew  who  she  was. 
Colum  sent  away  the  man,  because  he  was 
always  mooning  and  lamenting.  She  had  a 
great  wonderful  beauty  to  her. 

It  is  characteristic  enough,  even  to  the 
quaint  confusion  that  could  make  Mary 
Magdalene  and  St.  Columba  contemporary. 
But  as  for  the  story,  what  is  it  but  the  uni- 
versal Gaelic  legend  of  Diarmid  and  Grania  ? 
They  too  wandered  far  to  escape  the  avenger. 
It  does  not  matter  that  their  "  beds "  are 


93 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

shown  in  rock  and  moor,  from  Glenmoriston 
to  Loch  Awe,  from  Lora  Water  to  West 
Loch  Tarbert,  with  an  authenticity  as  abso- 
lute as  that  which  discovers  them  almost 
anywhere  between  Donegal  and  Clare ;  nor 
that  the  death-place  has  many  sites  betwixt 
Argyll  and  Connemara.  In  Gaelic  Scotland 
every  one  knows  that  Diarmid  was  wounded 
to  the  death  on  the  rocky  ground  between 
Tarbert  of  Loch  Fyne  and  the  West  Loch. 
Every  one  knows  the  part  the  boar  played, 
and  the  part  Finn  played. 

Doubtless  the  story  came  by  way  of  the 
Shannon  to  the  Loch  of  Shadows,  or  from 
Cuculain's  land  to  Dfin  Sobhairce  on  the 
Antrim  coast,  and  thence  to  the  Scottish 
mainland.  In  wandering  to  the  isles,  it  lost 
something  both  of  Eire  and  Alba.  The 
Campbells,  too,  claimed  Diarmid;  and  so 
the  Hebrideans  would  as  soon  forget  him. 
So  there,  by  one  byplay  of  the  mind  or 
another,  it  survived  in  changing  raiment. 
Perhaps  an  islesman  had  heard  a  strange 
legend  about  Mary  Magdalene,  and  so 
named  Grania  anew.  Perhaps  a  story-teller 
consciously  wove  it  the  new  way.  Perhaps 
an  lona  man,  hearing  the  tale  in  distant 
Barra  or  Uist,  in  Coll  or  Tiree,  "  buried " 
Mary  in  a  cave  of  Icolmkill. 

The  notable  thing  is,  not  that  a  primitive 


94 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

legend  should  love  fantastic  raiment,  but 
that  it  should  be  so  much  alike,  where  the 
Syrian  wanders  from  waste  to  waste,  by 
the  camp-fires  of  the  Basque  muleteers,  and 
in  the  rainy  lands  of  the  Gael. 

In  Mingulay,  one  of  the  south  isles  of  the 
Hebrides,  in  South  Uist,  and  in  lona,  I  have 
heard  a  fundamentally  identical  tale  told 
with  striking  variations.  It  is  a  tale  so  wide- 
spread that  it  has  given  rise  to  a  pathetic 
proverb,  "  Is  mairg  a  loisgeadh  a  chlarsach 
dut,"  "  Pity  on  him  who  would  burn  the  harp 
for  you." 

In  Mingulay,  the  "harper"  who  broke  his 
"  harp  "  for  a  woman's  love  was  a  young  man, 
a  fiddler.  For  three  years  he  wandered  out 
of  the  west  into  the  east,  and  when  he  had 
made  enough  money  to  buy  a  good  share  in 
a  fishing-boat,  he  came  back  to  Mingulay. 
When  he  reached  his  Mary's  cottage,  at 
dusk,  he  played  her  favourite  air,  an  "  oran 
leannanachd : "  but  when  she  came  out  it 
was  with  a  silver  ring  on  her  left  hand  and 
a  baby  in  her  arms.  Thus  poor  Padruig 
Macneill  knew  Mary  had  broken  her  troth 
and  married  another  man,  and  so  he  went 
down  to  the  shore  and  played  the  lament 
for  the  dead  that  is  called  a  "  marbh-rann," 
and  then  broke  his  fiddle  on  the  rocks ;  and 
when  they  came  upon  him  in  the  morning 


95 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

he  had  the  strings  of  it  round  his  neck.  In 
Uist,  the  instrument  is  more  vaguely  called  a 
"  tiompan,"  and  here,  on  a  bitter  cold  night  in 
a  famine  time,  the  musician  breaks  it  so  as 
to  feed  the  fire  to  warm  his  wife  —  a  sacri- 
fice ill  repaid  by  the  elopement  of  the  hard 
woman  that  night.  In  lona,  the  tale  is  of  an 
Irish  piper  who  came  over  to  Icolmkill  on  a 
pilgrimage,  and  to  lay  his  "peeb-h'yanna"  ■ 
on  "  the  holy  stones;  "  but,  when  there,  he 
got  word  that  his  young  wife  was  ill,  so  he 
"  made  a  loan  of  his  clar,"  and  with  the 
money  returned  to  Derry,  only  to  find  that 
his  dear  had  gone  away  with  a  soldier  to 
the  Americas. 

The  legendary  history  of  lona  would  be 
as  much  Pagan  as  Christian.  To-day,  at 
many  a  ceilidh  by  the  warm  hearths  in  winter, 
one  may  hear  allusions  to  the  Scandinavian 
pirates,  or  to  their  more  ancient  and  obscure 
kin,  the  Fomor.  The  Fomor  or  Fomorians 
were  a  people  that  lived  before  the  Gael, 
and  had  their  habitations  in  the  isles  :  fierce 
prowlers  of  the  sea,  who  loved  darkness 
and  cold  and  storm,  and  drove  herds  of 
wolves  across  the  deeps.  In  other  words, 
they  were  elemental  forces.     But  the  name 

I  The  Irish  pipes  are  called  "  Piob-theannaich  "  to 
distinguish  them  from  the  "  Piob  "  or  "  Piob-Mh6r  " 
of  the  Highlands. 

96 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

is  sometimes  used  for  the  Norse  pirates  who 
ravaged  the  west,  from  the  Lews  to  the 
Town  of  the  Hurdle-Ford,  as  Dublin  is 
called  in  Gaelic. 

In  poetic  narration  "  the  men  of  Lochlin  " 
occurs  oftener:  sometimes  the  "Summer- 
sailors,"  as  the  Vikings  called  themselves ; 
sometimes,  perhaps  oftenest,  the  "  Danes." 
The  Vikings  have  left  numerous  personal 
names  among  the  islanders,  notably  the 
general  term  "  summer-sailors,"  somerledi, 
which  survives  as  Somerled.  Many  Macleods 
and  Macdonalds  are  called  Somerled,  Torquil 
(also  Torcall,  Thorkill),  and  Manus  (Mag- 
nus), and  in  the  Hebrides  surnames  such  as 
Odrum  betray  a  Norse  origin.  A  glance  at 
any  good  map  will  reveal  how  largely  the 
capes  and  promontories  and  headlands,  and 
small  bays  and  havens  of  the  west,  remember 
the  lords  of  the  Suderoer. 

The  fascination  of  this  legendary  history 
is  in  its  contrast  of  the  barbaric  and  the 
spiritual.  Since  I  was  a  child  I  have  been 
held  spell-bound  by  this  singular  union.  To 
see  the  Virgin  Mary  in  the  sombre  and 
terrible  figure  of  the  Washer  of  the  Ford,  or 
spiritual  destiny  in  that  of  the  Woman  with 
the  Net,  was  natural :  as  to  believe  that  the 
same  Columba  could  be  as  tender  as  St. 
Bride  or  gentle  as  St.  Francis,  and  yet  could 


97 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

thrust  the  living  Oran  back  into  his  grave, 
or  prophecy,  as  though  himself  a  beUever  in 
the  druidic  wisdom,  by  the  barking  of  a 
favourite  hound  that  had  a  white  spot  on  his 
forehead  —  Donnalaich  chon  chinain. 

XXIII 

Once  more,  for  an  instance  of  the  grafting 
of  Christian  thought  and  imagery  on  pagan 
thought  and  imagery,  I  take  a  few  pages  of 
the  introductory  part  to  the  story  of  "  The 
Woman  with  the  Net,"  in  a  later  volume." 
They  tell  of  a  young  monk  who,  inspired  by 
Colum's  holy  example,  went  out  of  lona  as  a 
missionary  to  the  Pictish  heathen  of  the 
north. 

When  ArtSn  had  kissed  the  brow  of  every 
white-robed  brother  on  lona,  and  had  been 
thrice  kissed  by  the  aged  Colum,  his  heart 
was  filled  with  gladness. 

It  was  late  summer,  and  in  the  afternoon- 
light  peace  lay  on  the  green  waters  of  the 
Sound,  on  the  green  grass  of  the  dunes,  on 
the  domed  wicker-woven  cells  of  the  culdees 
over  whom  the  holy  Colum  ruled,  and  on 
the  little  rock-strewn  hill  which  rose  above 
where  stood  Colum's  wattled  church  of 
sun-baked  mud.     The  abbot  walked  slowly 


1  The  Dominion  of  Dreams. 

98 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

by  the  side  of  the  young  man.  Colum  was 
tall,  with  hair  long  and  heavy  but  white  as 
the  canna,  and  with  a  beard  that  hung  low 
on  his  breast,  grey  as  the  moss  on  old  firs. 
His  blue  eyes  were  tender.  The  youth  — 
for  though  he  was  a  grown  man  he  seemed  a 
youth  beside  Colum  —  had  beauty.  He  was 
tall  and  comely,  with  yellow  curling  hair, 
and  dark-blue  eyes,  and  a  skin  so  white  that 
it  troubled  some  of  the  monks  who  dreamed 
old  dreams  and  washed  them  away  in  tears 
and  scourgings. 

"  You  have  the  bitter  fever  of  youth  upon 
you,  Artan,"  said  Colum,  as  they  crossed 
the  dunes  beyond  Dun-I ;  "but  you  have 
no  fear,  and  you  will  be  a  flame  among  these 
Pictish  idolaters,  and  you  will  be  a  lamp  to 
show  them  the  way." 

"  And  when  I  come  again,  there  will  be 
clappings  of  hands,  and  hymns,  and  many 
rejoicings  ?  " 

"  I  do  not  think  you  will  come  again,"  said 
Colum.  "  The  wild  people  of  these  north- 
lands  will  burn  you,  or  crucify  you,  or  put 
you  upon  the  crahslat,  or  give  you  thirst  and 
hunger  till  you  die.  It  will  be  a  great  joy 
for  you  to  die  like  that,  Artan,  my  son  ? " 

"Ay,  a  great  joy,"  answered  the  young 
monk,  but  with  his  eyes  dreaming  away  from 
his  words. 


99 


THE   ISLE   OF   DREAMS 

Silence  was  between  them  as  they  neared 
the  cove  where  a  large  coracle  lay,  with  three 
men  in  it. 

"  Will  God  be  coming  over  the  water  to 
lona  when  I  am  away  ?  "  asked  Artan. 

Colum  stared  at  him. 

"  Is  it  likely  that  God  would  come  here  in 
a  coracle  ? "  he  asked,  with  scornful  eyes. 

The  young  man  looked  abashed.  For 
sure,  God  would  not  come  in  a  coracle,  just 
as  he  himself  might  come.  He  knew  by 
that  how  Colum  had  reproved  him.  He 
would  come  in  a  cloud  of  fire,  and  would  be 
seen  from  far  and  near.  Artan  wondered  if 
the  place  he  was  going  to  was  too  far  north 
for  him  to  see  that  greatness ;  but  he  feared 
to  ask. 

"  Give  me  a  new  name,"  he  asked ;  "  give 
me  a  new  name,  my  father." 

"  What  name  will  you  have  ?" 

"  Servant  of  Mary." 

"  So  be  it,  Artan  Gille-Mhoire." 

With  that  Colum  kissed  him  and  bade 
farewell,  and  Artan  sat  down  in  the  coracle, 
and  covered  his  head  with  his  mantle,  and 
wept  and  prayed. 

The  last  word  he  heard  was.  Peace  ! 

"  That  is  a  good  word,  and  a  good  thing," 
he  said  to  himself;  "and  because  I  am  the 
Servant  of  Mary,  and  the  Brother  of  Jesu 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

the  Son,  I  will  take  peace  to  the  Cruitni, 
who  know  nothing  of  that  blessing  of  the 
blessings." 

When  he  unfolded  his  mantle,  he  saw  that 
the  coracle  was  already  far  from  lona.  The 
south  wind  blew,  and  the  tides  swept  north- 
ward, and  the  boat  moved  swiftly  across  the 
water.  The  sea  was  ashine  with  froth  and 
small  waves  leaping  like  lambs. 

In  the  boat  were  Thorkeld,  a  helot  of 
lona,  and  two  dark  wild-eyed  men  of  the 
north.  They  were  Picts,  but  could  speak 
the  tongue  of  the  Gael.  Myrdu,  the  Pictish 
king  of  Skye,  had  sent  them  to  lona,  to  bring 
back  from  Colum  a  culdee  who  could  show 
wonders.  "  And  tell  the  chief  Druid  of  the 
God-men,"  Myrdu  had  said,  "  that  if  his 
culdee  does  not  show  me  good  wonders,  and 
so  make  me  believe  in  his  two  gods  and  the 
w'oman,  I  will  put  an  ash-shaft  through  his 
body  from  the  hips  and  out  at  his  mouth,  and 
send  him  back  on  the  north  tide  to  the  Isle 
of  the  White-Robes." 

The  sun  was  already  among  the  outer  isles 
when  the  coracle  passed  near  the  Isle  of 
Columns.  A  great  noise  was  in  the  air:  the 
noise  of  the  waves  in  the  caverns,  and 
the  noise  of  the  tide,  like  sea-wolves  growl- 
ing, and  like  bulls  bellowing  in  a  narrow 
pass  of  the  hills. 


THE   ISLE   OF   DREAMS 

A  sudden  current  caught  the  boat,  and  it 
began  to  drift  towards  great  reefs  white  with 
ceaseless  torn  streams. 

Thorkeld  leaned  from  the  helm,  and 
shouted  to  the  two  Picts.  They  did  not  stir, 
but  sat  staring,  idle  with  fear. 

Artan  knew  now  that  it  was  as  Colum  had 
said.     God  would  give  him  glory  soon. 

So  he  took  the  little  clarsach  he  had  for 
hymns,  for  he  was  the  best  harper  on  lona, 
and  struck  the  strings,  and  sang.  But  the 
Latin  words  tangled  in  his  throat,  and  he 
knew  too  that  the  men  in  the  boat  would  not 
understand  what  he  sang;  also  that  the  older 
gods  still  came  far  south,  and  in  the  caves  of 
the  Isle  of  Columns  were  demons.  There 
was  only  one  tongue  common  to  all ;  and 
since  God  had  wisdom  beyond  that  of  Colum 
himself.  He  would  know  the  song  in  Gaelic 
as  well  as  though  sung  in  Latin. 

So  Artan  let  the  wind  take  his  broken 
hymn,  and  he  made  a  song  of  his  own,  and 
sang : 

O  Heavenly  Mary,  Queen  of  the  Elements, 
And  you,  Brigit  the  fair  with  the  little  harp, 
And  all  the  saints,  and  all  the  old  gods 
(And  it  is  not  one  of  them  I  'd  be  disowning), 
Speak    to    the   Father,   that    he  may   save   us   from 
drowning. 

Then  seeing  that  the  boat  drifted  closer, 
he  sang  again : 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

Save  us  from  the  rocks  and  the  sea,  Queen  of  Heaven ! 
And  remember  that  I  am  a  Culdee  of  lona, 
And  that  Colum  has  sent  me  to  the  Cruitni 
To  sing  them  the  song  of  peace  lest  they  be  damned  for 
ever! 

Thorkeld  laughed  at  that. 

"Can  the  woman  put  swimming  upon 
you  ? "  he  said  roughly.  "  I  would  rather 
have  the  good  fin  of  a  great  fish  now  than 
any  woman  in  the  skies." 

"  You  will  bum  in  hell  for  that,"  said 
Artan,  the  holy  zeal  warm  at  his  heart. 

But  Thorkeld  answered  nothing.  His  hand 
was  oh  the  helm,  his  eyes  on  the  foaming 
rocks.  Besides,  what  had  he  to  do  with  the 
culdee's  hell  or  heaven  ?  When  he  died,  he, 
who  was  a  man  of  Lochlann,  would  go  to  his 
own  place. 

One  of  the  dark  men  stood,  holding  the 
mast.  His  eyes  shone.  Thick  words  swung 
from  his  lips,  like  seaweed  thrown  out  of  a 
hollow  by  an  ebbing  wave. 

The  coracle  swerved,  and  the  four  men 
were  wet  with  the  heavy  spray. 

Thorkeld  put  his  oar  in  the  water,  and  the 
swaying  craft  righted. 

"  Glory  to  God,"  said  Artan. 

"  There  is  no  glory  to  your  god  in  this," 
said  Thorkeld  scornfully.  "  Did  you  not 
hear  what  Necta  sang  ?  He  sang  to  the 
woman   in  there  that  drags  men  into  the 

103 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

caves,  and  throws  their  bones  on  the  next 
tide.  He  put  an  incantation  upon  her,  and 
she  shrank,  and  the  boat  slid  away  from  the 
rocks." 

"  That  is  a  true  thing,"  thought  Artan.  He 
wondered  if  it  was  because  he  had  not  sung 
his  hymn  in  the  holy  Latin. 

When  the  last  flame  died  out  of  the  west, 
and  the  stars  came  like  sheep  gathering  at 
the  call  of  the  shepherd,  Artan  remembered 
that  he  had  not  said  his  prayers  nor  sung 
the  vesper  hymn. 

He  lay  back  and  listened.  There  were  no 
bells  calling  across  the  water.  He  looked 
into  the  depths.  It  was  Manann's  kingdom, 
and  he  had  never  heard  that  God  was  there. 
He  looked  long.  Then  he  stared  into  the 
dark -blue  star-strewn  sky. 

Suddenly  he  touched  Thorkeld. 

"  Tell  me,"  he  said,  "  how  far  north  has 
the  Cross  of  Christ  come  ? " 

"  By  the  sea-way  it  has  not  come  here  yet. 
Murdoch  the  Freckled  came  with  it  this  way, 
but  he  was  pulled  into  the  sea,  and  he  died." 

"  Who  pulled  him  into  the  sea  ? " 

Thorkeld  stared  into  the  running  wave. 
He  had  no  words. 

Artan  lay  still  for  a  long  while. 

"  It  will  go  ill  with  me,"  he  thought,  "  if 
Mary  cannot  see  me  so  far  away  from  lona, 

104 


THE   ISLE   OK    DREAMS 

and  if  God  will  not  listen  to  me.  Colum 
should  have  known  that,  and  given  me  a 
holy  leaf  with  the  fair  branching  letters  on 
it,  and  the  Latin  words  that  are  the  words 
of  God." 

Then  he  spoke  to  the  man  who  had  sung. 

"  Do  you  know  of  Mary,  and  God,  and  the 
Son,  and  the  Spirit  ?  " 

"You  have  too  many  Gods,  Culdee," 
answered  the  Pict  sullenly :  "  for  of  these 
one  is  your  god's  son,  and  the  other  is  the 
woman  his  mother,  and  the  third  is  the  ghost 
of  an  ancestor." 

Artan  frowned. 

"  The  curse  of  the  God  of  Peace  upon  you 
for  that,"  he  said  angrily ;  "  do  you  know 
that  you  have  hell  for  your  dwelling-place  if 
you  speak  evil  of  God  the  Father,  and  the 
Son,  and  the  Mother  of  God  ?  " 

"  How  long  have  they  been  in  lona,  White- 
Robe  ? " 

The  man  spoke  scornfully.  Artan  knew 
they  had  not  been  there  many  years.  He 
had  no  words. 

"  My  fathers  worshipped  the  Sun  on  the 
Holy  Isle  before  ever  your  great  Druid  that 
is  called  Colum  crossed  the  Moyle.  Were 
your  three  gods  in  the  coracle  with  Colum  ? 
They  were  not  on  the  Holy  Isle  when  he 
came." 

105 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

"  They  were  coming  there,"  answered 
Artan  confusedly.  "It  is  a  long,  long  way 
from  —  from  —  from  the  place  they  were  sail- 
ing from." 

Necta  listened  sullenly. 

"  Let  them  stay  on  lona,"  he  said :  "  gods 
though  they  be,  it  would  fare  ill  with  them  if 
they  came  upon  the  Woman  with  the  Net." 
Then  he  turned  on  his  side,  and  lay  by  the 
man  Darach,  who  was  staring  at  the  moon 
and  muttering  words  that  neither  Artan  nor 
Thorkeld  knew. 

A  white  calm  fell.  The  boat  lay  like  a 
leaf  on  a  silent  pool.  There  was  nothing 
between  that  dim  wilderness  and  the  vast 
sweeping  blackness  filled  with  quivering 
stars,  but  the  coracle,  that  a  wave  could 
crush. 

XXIV 

One  day,  on  lona,  I  met  an  old  woman  who 
had  been  gathering  driftwood  in  the  haven 
called  Port-na-Churaich  —  the  haven  of  the 
coracle,  for  it  was  there  St.  Colum  landed 
on  the  day  Christ's  hand  steered  the  helm  to 
the  Holy  Isle.  She  was  weary  with  her 
burthen,  and  had  rested  on  a  ledge  of  gran- 
ite, and  there  had  fallen  asleep.  I  stood  a 
long  time  looking  at  her.  I  had  not  seen 
her  for  some  years,  not  since  the  death  of 

1 06 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

her  daughter  in  the  Sleat  of  Skye :  but  it 
was  not  at  the  wayworn  sadness  of  the  old 
figure  I  was  looking,  though  that  was  in  my 
thoughts.  I  was  thinking  of  what  I  had 
heard  of  her.  Long  ago  a  poet  of  the  isles 
had  put  song  upon  song  on  her,  as  the  say- 
ing is :  and  one  known  to  all  of  us  had  made 
an  ora7t-gkaoil  about  her  which  is  still  sung 
from  the  Rhinns  of  Islay  to  The  Seven 
Hunters.  When  I  was  a  child  I  had  heard 
often  of  the  beauty  of  Mary  Macarthur.  But 
sorrow,  which  had  long  lain  as  upon  a  rock 
on  the  hills,  looking  at  her,  had  come  sud- 
denly in  the  twilight,  when  all  was  well, 
and  took  her  heart  in  fierce  swift  hands,  and 
wrung  it,  till  it  was  as  tide-wrack  left  by  the 
ebb  on  dry  sand.  She  was  old,  and  her 
beauty  was  gone  away  from  her  like  a  rain- 
bow lifted  from  a  wilderness,  long  before  the 
last  of  her  partings  came  to  her  in  Sleat  of 
Skye. 

She  too  had  been  known  for  her  songs. 
They  were  pastoral  and  sweet,  or  of  the  sea 
and  wild  and  lamenting.  One,  telling  of  the 
small,  shaggy,  long-horned  kye  coming  with 
a  young  herd-girl  over  the  braes  in  mist  and 
crowding  upon  a  loosened  cliff,  and  so  falling 
into  the  surge  of  the  tides  a  thousand  feet 
below,  is  well  known  among  the  few  who 
remember  such   things   in   the  old  tongue 

107 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

that  is  being  so  swiftly  forgotten :  another, 
of  the  sea-bulls,  is  a  favourite  iorram  of  the 
boatmen  of  the  middle  isles :  and  Eachan 
MacDougall,  the  blind  poet  of  Skye,  used 
to  sing  to  women  in  the  twilight,  over  the 
kindly  tea  or  sup  of  milk  and  porridge,  her 
seven  strange  sad  songs  that  are  called  "  A 
Day  in  My  Heart."  It  was  these  only  I 
recalled  now.  They  tell  the  lives  of  many 
women.  There  is  the  dawn-song  of  wonder 
and  joy,  the  morning-song  of  the  proud 
heart,  the  noon-song  of  the  sleeping  passions 
and  sleeping  thoughts,  the  afternoon  song  of 
longing  and  blind  anger  and  pain,  the  gloam- 
ing song  of  regret  and  tears  and  silence,  the 
nightfall  song  of  revolt  and  the  heart  aflame, 
and  the  midnight  song  that  is  not  sung,  but 
is  smothered  in  ashes,  or  drowned  in  deep 
water,  or  burned  in  the  fierceness  of  fire.  In 
Eachan-Dall's  poem,  he  says  her  beauty  is 
the  beauty  of  the  morning  star  in  June,  when 
it  is  a  white  fire  in  a  rose  of  flame.  He  says 
her  grace  is  the  grace  of  the  larch  in  an 
April  wind,  of  a  reed  in  shaken  waters,  of  a 
wave  tost  like  a  white  flower  in  the  blue  hair 
of  the  sea,  of  a  fawn  moving  through  bracken 
in  the  green  dusk  of  old  trees.  He  says  men 
will  remember  her  beauty  till  they  are  old; 
and  their  sons  shall  remember  it;  and  their 
son's  sons.     He  says,  "  Surely  in  this  fair 

1 08 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

woman's  heart  is  great  joy  and  pride,  for  she 
will  be  beautiful  and  glad  all  the  days  of  her 
life."  And  I  recall  the  last  of  her  songs, 
"  Flame  on  the  Wind."  I  cannot  give  it 
aright  in  English,  for  its  long  mournful 
cadences,  lifted  on  tides  of  passionate  vain 
regret  and  old  grief,  need  the  language  of 
the  old  world  that  has  in  it  so  much  of  the 
sound  of  wind  in  trees  and  the  lamentation 
of  wind  and  the  sighing  of  waters.  I  thought 
of  it  as  I  looked  at  old  Mary  Macarthur, 
and  of  the  ending  of  one  verse  : 

O  burning  soul, 
Can  hills  of  ice  assuage  this  burning  fire  ? 

And  then  I  remembered  one  of  her  love- 
songs,  she  who  had  known  so  much  love, 
and  had  thrown  treasures  down  barren  rocks 
into  the  cold  seas,  and  had  made  a  flaming 
universe  and  eternity  out  of  the  pale  hour  of 
a  wintry  noon. 

It  is  dark  here,  my  Love,  my  Pulse,  my  Heart,  my 
Flame  : 

Dark  the  night,  dark  with  wind  and  cloud,  the  wind 
without  aim 

Baffled  and  blind,  the  cloud  low,  broken,  dragging, 
lame, 

And  a  stir  in  the  darkness  at  the  end  of  the  room  sigh- 
ing my  name,  whispering  my  name  ! 

Is  that  the  sea  calling,  or  the  hounds  of  the  sea,  or  the 
wind's  hounds? 


109 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

Great  is  that  dark  noise  under  the  black  north  wind 
Out  on  the  sea  to-night:  but  still  it  is  —  still  as  the 

frosts  that  bind 
The  stark  inland  waters  in  green  depths  where  icebergs 

grind  — 
In  this  noise  of  shaking  storm  in  my  heart  and  this 

blast  sweeping  my  mind  ! 

And  now  nothing  of  all  this  left,  nothing  but 
a  tired  old  woman,  sad-eyed  and  furrowed, 
poorly  clad,  a  gatherer  of  driftwood.  Hills 
of  ice  had  in  truth  assuaged  this  burning  fire. 
The  noise  of  shaking  storm  had  ebbed  from 
the  troubled  heart ;  no  blast  now  swept  the 
mind,  but  only  the  chill  airs  of  winter  froze 
dreams  and  all  old  sweet  thoughts,  perhaps 
memories  even.  Poor  old  woman,  how  white 
and  old  and  withered  she  looked,  so  forlorn 
in  her  poor  frayed  clothes,  in  the  sleep  of 
weariness,  among  the  yellowing  bracken  by 
the  granite  rock.  Was  it  all  gone,  I  won- 
dered :  all  the  dream,  the  wonder,  the  flame  ? 
Were  they  all  gone,  noons  of  passionate  life, 
twilights  of  peace  and  recaptured  hopes, 
nights  uplifted  in  dreams  or  shaken  with 
tears  and  longings .-' 

While  I  was  dreaming  and  wondering, 
wondering  and  dreaming,  old  Mary  stirred, 
and  opened  her  eyes.  At  first  sleep  was 
heavy  on  her,  and  I  saw  she  was  not  yet 
rightly  awake. 

"  Do  not  stir,"  I  said,  "  and  I  will  sit  down 


THE    ISLE   OF   DREAMS 

here  beside  you,  Mairi  nic  Ruaridh  Doting 
At  that,  and  the  familiar  name,  she  knew  me, 
and  was  glad  to  tears,  and  welcomed  me  over 
and  over,  as  though  I  had  come  in  some 
impossible  way  out  of  the  irrecoverable  past. 
"  Yes,  I  had  the  tiredness  indeed,"  she 
added  after  a  little,  "  but  what  of  that  ?  For 
I  had  the  good  sleep,  and  a  thousand  things 
of  goodness  more,  for  I  had  a  dream  of 
dreams.  Do  I  remember  it  ?  Yes,  for  sure, 
I  have  it  as  clear  as  a  cradle.  I  was  lying 
here,  just  as  I  will  be  now,  with  this  faggot 
here  too,  when  a  woman  of  beauty  came  up 
the  path  and  took  the  faggot  and  flung  all  the 
sticks  an'  ends  into  the  sea.  '  What  will  you 
be  doing,  lady  ? '  I  said,  but  not  in  anger, 
only  in  the  great  wonder.  '  'Tis  your  sorrows 
I  'm  throwing  away,'  she  said,  with  a  voice 
as  sweet  as  to  send  the  birds  to  the  branches 
—  chuireadh  e  na  Kebin\in  crannaibh.  'It 
is  glad  of  that  I  am,'  I  said,  '  for  it  is  many 
of  them  I  have.'  Then  she  said,  '  You  '11 
have  peace,  Mary,  and  great  joy,  and  your 
songs  and  your  beauty  will  never  die.'  So 
the  tears  were  at  me  at  that,  an'  I  cried,  '  It 
is  only  an  aislitig  you  are  ...  a  dream  and 
a  vision  ! '  ♦  No,'  she  said,  '  an'  by  the  same 
token.  Mar)-,  I  '11  tell  you  the  song  that  you 
were  singing  below  your  breath  down  there 
on  the  shore : 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

"  A  Dhe  na  mara 

Cuir  todhar  's  an  tarruinn 

Chon  tachair  an  talaimh 

Chon  bailcidh  dhuinn  biaidh."  ' 

And  sure,  an'  in  truth,  these  M'ere  the  very 
words  I  was  singing  to  myself  down  there  on 
the  shore  .  .  .  '  O  God  of  the  Sea,  fill  the 
sea-wave  with  store  of  the  good  weed,  to  feed 
the  soil  that  will  give  us  food.'  And  at  that 
my  heart  sank  with  fear  and  rose  with  glad- 
ness, for  who  could  this  be  but  .  .  .  an'  sure 
before  I  could  put  word  to  it,  she  said  I  am 
Brighid.  I  went  on  the  knees,  and  cried 
gach  la'  agus  oidhche  thoir  duinn  do  shcinih  — 
'  each  day  and  night  give  us  thy  peace.'  And 
I  was  putting  another  word  to  it,  for  her,  fair 
Foster-Mother  of  Christ,  when  she  looked  at 
me  and  said, '  I  am  older  than  Brighid  of  the 
Mantle,  Mary,  and  it  is  you  that  should  know 
that.  I  put  songs  and  music  on  the  wind 
before  ever  the  bells  of  the  chapels  were 
rung  in  the  West  or  heard  in  the  East.  I 
am  Brighid-nam-Bratta,  but  I  am  also  Brig- 
hid-Muirghin-na-tuinne,  and  Brighid-sluagh, 
Brighid-nan-sitheach  seang,  Brighid-Binne- 
Bheul-lhuchd-nan-trusganan-uaine,  and  I  am 
older  than  Aona  and  am  as  old  as  Luan. 
And  in  Tir  na  h'oige  my  name  is  Suibhal- 
bheann  ;  in  Tir-fo-thuinn  it  is  Cu-gorm  ;  and 
in  Tir  na  h'oise  it  is  Sireadh-thall.     And  I 


THE   ISLE   OF   DREAMS 

have  been  a  breath  in  your  heart.  And  the 
day  has  its  feet  to  it  that  will  see  me  coming 
into  the  hearts  of  men  and  women  like  a 
flame  upon  dry  grass,  like  a  flame  of  wind  in 
a  great  wood.  For  the  time  of  change  is  at 
hand,  Mairi  nic  Ruaridh  Donn  —  though  not 
for  you,  old  withered  leaf  on  the  dry  branch, 
though  for  you,  too,  when  you  come  to  us 
and  see  all  things  in  the  pools  of  life  yonder.' 

"  And  at  that  I  closed  my  eyes,  and  said 
the  line  of  the  old  poem  that  you  will  be 
knowing  well,  the  Laoidh  Fhraoch  —  Bu 
bhiime  ua  farch-chiuil  do  ghtith  —  sweeter 
thy  voice  than  the  sweetest  lute. 

"And  when  I  opened  them  she  was  not 
there,  but  I  was  an  old  woman  on  the  brae 
above  Port-na-Churaich,  and  when  I  looked 
again  it  was  you  I  saw  and  no  other."' 


I  St.  Brighid(in  Gaelic  pronounced  sometimes  Bride, 
sometimes  Breed),  St.  Bride  of  the  Isles  as  she  is  lov- 
ingly called  in  the  Hebrides,  has  no  name  so  dear  to  the 
Gael  as  "  Muirae-Chriosd,"  Christ's  Foster-Mother, 
a  name  bestowed  on  her  by  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
of  Celtic  legends.  In  the  isles  of  Gaelic  Scotland  her 
most  familiar  name  is  Brigkidnani  Bratta — St.  Bridget 
or  St.  Bride  of  the  Mantle  —  from  her  having  wrapt  the 
new-bom  Babe  in  her  mantle  in  Mary's  hour  of  weak- 
ness. She  did  not  come  into  the  Gaelic  heart  with  the 
Cross  and  Mary,  but  was  there  long  before  as  Bride, 
Brighid  or  Brithid  of  the  Dedannans,  those  not 
immortal  but  for  long  ages  deathless  folk  who  to  the 
Gael  were  as  the  Olympians  to  the  Greeks.    That 

"3 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

I  have  thought  often  of  old  Mary  Macar- 
thur,  and  of  her  dream  of  holy  St.  Bride,  and 
of  that  older  Brighid  of  the  West,  Mother  of 
Songs  and  Music  —  she  who  breathes  in  the 

earlier  Brighid  was  goddess  of  poetry  and  music,  one 
of  the  three  great  divinities  of  love,  goddess  of  women, 
the  keeper  of  prophecies  and  dreams,  the  watcher  of 
the  greater  destinies,  the  guardian  of  the  future.  I 
think  she  was  no  other  than  a  Celtic  Demeter — that 
Demeter-Desphoena  bom  of  the  embrace  of  Poseidon, 
who  in  turn  is  no  other  than  Lir,  the  Oceanus  of  the 
Gael  :  and  instead  of  Demeter  seeking  and  lamenting 
Persephone  in  the  underworld,  it  is  Demeter-Erighid 
seeking  her  brother  (or,  it  may  be,  her  son)  Manan 
(Manannan),  God  of  the  Sea,  son  of  Oceanus,  Lir  — 
and  finding  him  at  last  in  Iceland,  etc.  —  as  I  write 
here  a  little  further  on.  Persephone  and  Manan  are 
symbols  of  the  same  Return  of  Life. 

The  other  names  are  old  Gaelic  names  :  Brighid- 
Miiirghin  -  na-iuinne ,  Brighid  -  Conception  -  of  -  the- 
Waves ;  Brighid-Sluagh  (or  Sloigh),  Brighid  of  the 
Immortal  Host  ;  Brighid-nan-Sitheach-seang,  Bridget 
of  the  Slim  Fairy  Folk  ;  Brighid-Binne-Bhcul-thtichd- 
nan-intsganau-uaine,  Song-sweet  (lit.  melodious 
mouth 'd)  Brighid  of  the  Tribe  of  the  Green  Mantles. 
She  is  also  called  Brighid  of  the  Harp,  Brighid  of  the 
Sorrowful,  Brighid  of  Prophecy,  Brighid  of  Pure  Love, 
St.  Bride  of  the  Isles,  Bride  of  Joy,  and  other  names. 
Aona  is  an  occasional  and  ancient  form  of  Di-Aoin, 
Friday  ;  and  Luan,  of  Dihtatn,  Monday. 

Tir-na-A' Oige (commonly  anglicised  as  Timanogue) 
is  the  Land  of  (Eternal)  Youth  ;  Tir-fo-thuitin  is  the 
Country  of  the  Waves  ;  and  Tir-na-h^ oise  is  the  Coun- 
try of  Ancient  Years.  The  fairy  names  Siubhal-bheann, 
Cii-garm,  and  Siread-thall  respectively  mean  Moun- 
tain-traveller, Grey  Hound,  and  Seek-Beyond. 

114 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

reed,  on  the  wind,  in  the  hearts  of  women 
and  in  the  minds  of  poets.  For  I  too  have 
my  dream,  my  memory  of  one  whom  as  a 
child  I  called  Star-Eyes,  and  whom,  later,  I 
called  "  Banmorair-na-mara,"  the  Lady  of 
the  Sea,  and  whom  at  last  I  knew  to  be  no 
other  than  the  woman  that  is  in  the  heart  of 
women.  I  was  not  more  than  seven  when 
one  day,  by  a  well,  near  a  sea-loch  in  Argyll, 
just  as  I  was  stooping  to  drink,  my  glancing 
eyes  lit  on  a  tall  woman  standing  among  a 
mist  of  wild-hyacinths  under  three  great 
sycamores.  I  stood,  looking,  as  a  fawn 
looks,  wide-eyed,  unafraid.  She  did  not 
speak,  but  she  smiled,  and  because  of  the 
love  and  beauty  in  her  eyes  I  ran  to  her. 
She  stooped  and  lifted  blueness  out  of  the 
flowers  as  one  might  lift  foam  out  of  a  pool, 
and  I  thought  she  threw  it  over  me.  When 
I  was  found,  lying  among  the  hyacinths, 
dazed,  and,  as  was  thought,  ill,  I  asked 
eagerly  after  the  lady  in  white  and  with  hair 
"all  shiny-gold  like  buttercups,"  but  when 
I  found  I  was  laughed  at,  or  at  last,  when  I 
passionately  persisted,  was  told  I  was  sun- 
dazed  and  had  been  dreaming,  I  said  no 
more.  But  I  did  not  forget.  And  for  many 
days,  for  weeks  indeed,  I  stole  away  to  seek 
or  be  found  by  my  white  love,  though  she 
had  gone  away  or  did  not  come  again.     It 

"5 


THE   ISLE   OF   DREAMS 

was  years  aftenvard  that  I  heard  a  story 
of  a  woman  of  the  divine  folk,  who  was 
called  the  Lady  of  the  Sea,  and  was  a  daugh- 
ter of  Lir,  and  went.lamenting  upon  the  earth 
because  she  had  lost  her  brother  Manan  the 
Beautiful,  but  came  upon  him  at  last  among 
the  hills  of  Iceland  and  wooed  him  with 
songs  and  flowers  and  brought  him  back 
again,  so  that  all  the  world  of  men  rejoiced, 
and  ships  sailed  the  seas  in  safety  and  nets 
were  filled  with  the  fruit  of  the  wave.  And 
it  was  years  after  that  before  I  knew  the 
deeper  wisdom,  and  wrote  of  the  Shepherd- 
ess the  words  that  I  now  say  again  —  "I 
believe  that  we  are  close  upon  a  great  and 
deep  spiritual  change ;  I  believe  a  new 
redemption  is  even  now  conceived  of  the 
Divine  Spirit  in  the  human  heart,  that  is 
itself  as  a  woman,  broken  in  dreams  and 
yet  sustained  in  faith,  patient,  long-suffer- 
ing, looking  towards  home.  I  believe  that 
though  the  Reign  of  Peace  may  be  yet  a 
long  way  off,  it  is  drawing  near;  and  that 
Who  shall  save  us  anew  shall  come  divinely 
as  a  Woman — but  whether  through  mortal 
birth,  or  as  an  immortal  breathing  upon  our 
souls,  none  can  yet  know.  Sometimes  I 
dream  of  the  old  prophecy  that  Christ  shall 
come  again  upon  lona;  and  of  that  later 
prophecy  which  foretells,  now  as  the  Bride 

ii6 


XPE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

of  Christ,  now  as  the  Daughter  of  God,  now 
as  the  Divine  Spirit  embodied  through  mor- 
tal birth  —  the  coming  of  a  new  Presence 
and  Power;  and  dream  that  this  may  be 
upon  lona,  so  that  the  little  Gaelic  island 
may  become  as  the  little  Syrian  Bethlehem. 
But  more  wise  it  is  to  dream,  not  of  hallowed 
ground,  but  of  the  hallowed  gardens  of  the 
soul,  wherein  She  shall  appear  white  and 
radiant.  Or  that,  upon  the  hills,  where  we 
are  wandered,  the  Shepherdess  shall  call  us 
home." 

Yes,  I  have  thought  often  of  Mary  Mac- 
arthur,  that  solitary  old  woman,  poor  and 
desolate,  once  so  beautiful :  yet  loved  by 
Brighid,  the  genius  of  our  people.  Was  it 
not  our  sorrowful  Gaelic  world  I  saw,  when 
I  came  upon  the  poor  old  woman  —  that 
passing  world  of  songs  and  beauty,  of  poets' 
dreams  and  of  broken  hearts,  that  even  now 
in  forlorn  old  age  is  loved  again  by  Brighid 
the  White  —  Brighid  the  White,  who  even 
yet  may  use  the  fading  voice  to  lead  the 
wild  trumpets  of  revelation  ? 

XXVI 

We  have  in  Ross  and  the  Outer  Isles  a 
singular  legend,  which  has  a  beauty  within 

117 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

and  without.  A  young  crofter  was  unhappy 
hi  love  and  not  fortunate  in  the  hard  way  of 
the  hill-Ufe.  When  bad  seasons  come  on 
the  back  of  the  black  wind,  the  croft-smoke 
turns  from  blue  to  brown,  as  the  saying  is : 
and  bad  seasons  in  succession  had  come  to 
the  Strath,  and  every  one  of  the  scattered 
clansfolk  there  had  suffered,  but  none  so 
much  as  Fergus  Dhu,  who  had  lost  sheep, 
and  crops,  and  the  youth  out  of  his  heart. 

One  day  he  went  idly  across  the  boggy 
moor  under  Cnoc  Glas,  mooning  among  the 
loneroid  and  black  heather  where  the  white 
tufts  of  canna  were  like  blown  foam  of  the 
sea.  A  single  tree  grew  on  that  waste,  a 
thorn  that  on  a  forgotten  Beltane  had  been 
withered  into  a  grey  Woman,  the  Fairy 
Thorn  or  The  Singing  Tree  or  Tree  of  Bad 
Music.  At  many  a  winter  ceilidh  by  the 
peat-glow  tales  were  passed  of  what  had 
been  seen  or  heard  there :  but  they  were 
all  at  one  in  this,  that  only  the  happy  and 
fortunate  were  in  peril  there,  that  only  the 
unhappy  and  unfortunate  might  go  that  way, 
and,  indifferent,  see  the  tall  swift  woman  in 
grey,  or  hear  the  thin  music. 

Likely  that  was  why  Fergus  —  Fergus  Dhu 
as  he  was  called,  because  of  his  black  hair, 
and  black  eyes,  and  the  dark  hours  into  which 
he  so  often  fell  —  wandered  that  day  along 

ii8 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

the  sodden  bracken-covered  sheep-ways. 
When  he  came  to  the  Thorn  he  saw  no  grey 
woman,  perhaps  because  there  was  no  room 
in  his  dreaming  mind  for  any  but  one  woman 
who  now  would  never  warm  to  him  but  be  a 
kindly  stranger  always ;  and  heard  no  thin 
air,  gay  or  wild,  perhaps  because  the  sad  lift 
and  fall  in  his  heart  was  a  daylong  sound 
that  dulled  his  ears.  But  while  he  was  staring 
idly  into  the  withered  thorn  he  saw  a  short 
stem  break  into  little  green  leaves.  He  could 
not  believe  what  his  eyes  showed  him,  but 
when  he  saw  also  pink  and  white  blossoms 
run  in  and  out  among  the  leaves  and  break 
into  a  fall  of  snow,  and  felt  the  sudden 
sweetness  in  the  air  about  him,  he  believed. 
He  went  closer,  and  his  wonder  grew  when 
he  saw  that  the  stem  had  seven  holes  in  it. 
He  put  his  hand  on  the  stem,  and  it  came 
away.  There  was  a  hole  at  each  end,  and 
the  thorn-reed  was  like  any  feadan.  So  he 
put  it  to  his  mouth,  and  ran  his  familiar 
fingers  up  and  down  the  holes,  for  Fergus 
Dhu  was  the  cunningest  player  in  the  Strath. 
He  played  till  the  whole  Thorn  went  into 
a  wave  of  green.  He  played  till  a  snow 
of  blossom  came  all  over  that  greenness. 
Although  it  was  November,  and  wet,  and 
the  hill-wind  moaned  searching  the  corries, 
by  the  thorn  it  was  like  a  May  noon.     Fergus 

"9 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

looked  at  the  sky,  and  saw  that  it  was  blue : 
at  the  long  moor,  and  saw  that  it  was  covered 
with  April  yellow  and  with  a  shimmer  of  the 
wings  of  little  birds.  He  looked  at  the  grey 
hills  to  the  east,  and  they  were  rose-red  and 
a  star  was  above  them :  he  looked  at  the 
grey  hills  to  the  west,  and  they  were  blue  as 
peat-smoke  and  a  rainbow  leaned  against 
them.  Then  his  heart  filled  with  joy,  and  he 
said  to  himself,  "  I  have  found  my  desire." 
So  he  played  his  joy.  As  he  played,  the 
rainbow  leaned  away  from  the  grey  hills  of 
the  west,  and  took  their  sadness,  and  was  no 
more :  the  star  sank  behind  the  grey  moun- 
tains of  the  east:  the  long  moor  faded  into 
the  old  silence :  the  white  foam  and  the 
green  wave  ebbed  from  the  thorn. 

Fergus  looked  at  the  thom-pipe,  and  it  was 
only  a  black  cloud-wet  feadan  with  seven 
mossy  holes  in  it. 

He  "went  away"  in  that  hour.  No  one 
saw  him  that  night,  or  the  next  day,  or  the 
next :  and  months  and  years  passed,  and 
no  one  saw  him,  and  his  body  was  never 
seen,  though  his  bonnet  was  found  near  the 
withered  thorn. 

In  the  seventh  year  after  that  a  strange 
thing  happened.  A  new  life  quickened  the 
thorn.  A  thousand  small  green  buds  shook 
out  little  fluttering  green  leaves,  and,  from 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

these,  white  moths  of  blossom  continually 
rose.     Linnets  sang  on  the  branches. 

One  day  Fergus  Uhu  came  strolling  that 
way.  lie  had  no  memory  of  the  years  that 
had  gone,  or  with  whom  he  had  been,  and 
the  sweet  fatal  accent  was  out  of  his  ears. 
But  when  he  saw  the  thorn  he  remembered 
his  feadan,  and  took  it  from  his  coat-fold, 
and  played  because  of  his  gladness.  The 
tears  fell  from  his  eyes  when  he  saw  the 
grey  rain  come  down  and  blot  out  the  new 
life  from  the  thorn,  so  that  it  was  old  and 
withered  again :  and  at  the  wet  hill-wind 
calling  again  its  old  mournful  cry,  wheeling 
like  a  tired  hawk  above  the  far  lamentation 
of  the  sheep.  "  Why  is  this  ? "  he  said. 
"  When  I  saw  this  lonely  place  in  its  sorrow 
I  played  it  into  joy.  And  now  when  I  come 
upon  it  in  its  beauty,  I  have  played  it  back 
into  the  old  sorrow.  Grief  to  my  heart  that 
it  is  so." 

One  man  of  the  Strath  saw  Fergus  Dhu 
that  day,  and  he  spoke  of  Fergus  as  a  thin 
worn  leaf  that  one  sees  through  when  it 
hangs  in  the  wind.  Certainly  no  other  saw 
him,  nor  has  seen  him  since. 

XXVII 

This  tale  of  Fergus,  who  was  fey,  and 
went  down  the  west  with  strangers,  is  it  not 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

also  a  symbol,  even  as  Mary  Macarthur,  old 
and  poor  but  treasured  and  loved  and  cared 
for  by  the  Genius  of  our  race  ...  is  it  not 
also  a  symbol  of  the  Gaelic  heart,  of  the 
Gaelic  muse  let  me  say  ?  For  the  Gaelic 
muse  seems  to  me  the  beautiful  and  sad 
and  waywardly  joyous  spirit  of  whom  poor 
Fergus  was  but  the  troubled  image.  Does 
she,  too,  not  go  to  and  fro  in  a  land  where 
rainbows  bloom  and  fade  above  desolate 
places  and  where  a  star  hangs  above  the 
holy  hills  of  the  east,  seeking  her  desire : 
going  in  sorrow,  but,  suddenly  beholding  the 
world  radiant,  breaking  into  songs  of  joy 
and  laughter:  coming  again,  after  an  evil 
time,  and  finding  the  grey  thorn  of  the  world 
full  of  the  green  leaf,  blossom,  and  undying 
youth,  and,  so  finding,  turning  suddenly  to 
tears,  and  to  the  old  sorrow,  and  to  the 
longing  whose  thirst  is  not  to  be  quenched, 
to  the  cry  of  the  curlew  for  the  waste,  of  the 
heart  going  a  long  way  from  shadow  to 
shadow  ? 

One  must  with  this  lanthom  of  the  spirit 
look  into  the  dark  troubled  water  of  the 
Gaelic  heart,  too,  I  think,  if  one  would 
understand.  How  else  can  one  understand 
the  joy  that  is  so  near  to  sorrow,  the  sorrow 
that  like  a  wave  of  the  sea  can  break  in  a 
moment    into   light   and   beauty?     I   have 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

heard  often  in  effect,  "  This  is  no  deep  heart 
that  in  one  hour  weeps,  and  in  the  next 
laughs."  But  I  know  a  deeper  heart  that  in 
one  hour  weeps  and  the  next  laughs,  so  deep 
that  light  dies  away  within  it,  and  silence 
and  the  beginning  and  the  end  are  one  :  the 
heart  of  the  sea.  And  there  is  another  heart 
that  is  deep,  and  weeps  one  hour  and  in  the 
next  laughs :  the  heart  of  Night  .  .  .  where 
Oblivion  smiles,  and  it  is  day;  sighs,  and 
the  darkness  is  come.  And  there  is  another 
heart  that  is  deep,  and  weeps  in  one  hour 
and  in  the  next  laughs :  the  soul  of  man  : 
where  tears  and  laughter  are  the  fans  that 
blow  the  rose-white  flame  of  life.  And  I  am 
well  content  that  the  Gaelic  heart,  that  in  one 
hour  weeps  and  in  the  next  laughs,  though 
it  be  so  sad  and  worn  among  smiling  nations, 
is  in  accord  with  the  great  spirits  of  the 
world  and  with  immortal  things. 

As  I  write,  here  on  the  hill-slope  of  Dun-I, 
the  sound  of  the  furtive  wave  is  as  the  sigh- 
ing in  a  shell.  I  am  alone  between  sea  and 
sky,  for  there  is  no  other  on  this  bouldered 
height,  nothing  visible  but  a  single  blue 
shadow  that  slowly  sails  the  hillside.  The 
bleating  of  lambs  and  ewes,  the  lowing  of 
kine,  these  come  up  from  the  Machar  that 
lies  between  the  west  slopes  and  the  shore- 

123 


THE   ISLE   OF   DREAMS 

less  sea  to  the  west ;  these  ascend  as  the 
very  smoke  of  sound.  All  round  the  island 
there  is  a  continuous  breathing;  deeper  and 
more  prolonged  on  the  west,  where  the  open 
sea  is;  but  audible  everywhere.  The  seals 
on  Soa  are  even  now  putting  their  breasts 
against  the  running  tide ;  for  I  see  a  flashing 
of  fins  here  and  there  in  patches  at  the  north 
end  of  the  Sound,  and  already  from  the  ruddy 
granite  shores  of  the  Ross  there  is  a  congre- 
gation of  seafowl  —  gannets  and  guillemots, 
skuas  and  herring-gulls,  the  long-necked 
northern  diver,  the  tern,  the  cormorant.  In 
the  sunblaze,  the  waters  of  the  Sound  dance 
their  blue  bodies  and  swirl  their  flashing 
white  hair  o'  foam ;  and,  as  I  look,  they 
seem  to  me  like  children  of  the  wind  and 
the  sunshine,  leaping  and  running  in  these 
flowing  pastures,  with  a  laughter  as  sweet 
against  the  ears  as  the  voices  of  children  at 
play. 

The  joy  of  life  vibrates  everywhere.  Yet 
the  Weaver  does  not  sleep,  but  only  dreams. 
He  loves  the  sun-drowned  shadows.  They 
are  invisible  thus,  but  they  are  there,  in  the 
sunlight  itself.  Sure,  they  may  be  heard : 
as,  an  hour  ago,  when  on  my  way  hither  by 
the  Stairway  of  the  Kings  —  for  so  some- 
times they  call  here  the  ancient  stones  of  the 
mouldered  princes  of  long  ago  —  I  heard  a 

124 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

mother  moaning  because  of  the  son  that  had 
had  to  go  over-sea  and  leave  her  in  her  old 
age ;  and  heard  also  a  child  sobbing,  because 
of  the  sorrow  of  childhood  —  that  sorrow  so 
unfathomable,  so  incommunicable.  And  yet 
not  a  stone's-throw  from  where  I  lie,  half 
hidden  beneath  an  overhanging  rock,  is  the 
Pool  of  Healing.  To  this  small,  black-brown 
tarn,  pilgrims  of  every  generation,  for  hun- 
dreds of  years,  have  come.  Solitary,  these ; 
not  only  because  the  pilgrim  to  the  Fount  of 
Eternal  Youth  must  fare  hither  alone,  and  at 
dawn,  so  as  to  touch  the  healing  water  the 
moment  the  first  sunray  quickens  it  —  but 
solitary,  also,  because  those  who  go  in  quest 
of  this  Fount  of  Youth  are  the  dreamers  and 
the  Children  of  Dream,  and  these  are  not 
many,  and  few  come  now  to  this  lonely  place. 
Yet,  an  Isle  of  Dream  lona  is,  indeed.  Here 
the  last  sun-worshippers  bowed  before  the 
Rising  of  God  :  here  Columba  and  his  hymn- 
ing priests  laboured  and  brooded;  and  here 
Oran  or  his  kin  dreamed  beneath  the  monk- 
ish cowl  that  pagan  dream  of  his.  Here,  too, 
the  eyes  of  Fionn  and  Oisln,  and  of  many 
another  of  the  heroic  men  and  women  of  the 
Fianna,  may  have  lingered;  here  the  Pict 
and  the  Celt  bowed  beneath  the  yoke  of  the 
Norse  pirate,  who,  too,  left  his  dreams,  or 
rather  his  strangely  beautiful  soul-rainbows, 

125 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

as  a  heritage  to  the  stricken ;  here,  for 
century  after  century,  the  Gael  has  lived, 
suffered,  joyed,  dreamed  his  impossible, 
beautiful  dream  ;  as  here,  now,  he  still  lives, 
still  suffers  patiently,  still  dreams,  and, 
through  all  and  over  all,  broods  upon  the 
incalculable  mysteries.  He  is  an  elemental, 
among  the  elemental  forces.  He  knows  the 
voices  of  wind  and  sea :  and  it  is  because  the 
Fount  of  Youth  upon  Dfin-I  of  lona  is  not 
the  only  wellspring  of  peace,  that  the  Gael 
can  front  destiny  as  he  does,  and  can  endure. 
Who  knows  where  its  tributaries  are  ?  They 
may  be  in  your  heart,  or  in  mine,  and  in  a 
myriad  others. 

I  would  that  the  birds  of  Angus  Ogue 
might,  for  once,  be  changed,  not,  as  fabled, 
into  the  kisses  of  love,  but  into  doves  of 
peace,  that  they  might  fly  into  the  green 
world,  and  nest  there  in  many  hearts,  in 
many  minds,  crooning  their  incommunicable 
song  of  joy  and  hope. 

XXVIII 

A  doomed  and  passing  race.  I  have  been 
taken  to  task  for  these  words.  But  they  are 
true,  in  the  deep  reality  where  they  obtain. 
Yes,  but  true  only  in  one  sense,  however  vital 
that  is.  The  Breton's  eyes  are  slowly  turning 
from  the  enchanted  West,  and  slowly  his  ears 

126 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

are  forgetting  the  whisper  of  the  wind  around 
menhir  and  dolmen.  The  Manxman  has  ever 
been  the  mere  yeoman  of  the  Celtic  chivalry ; 
but  even  his  rude  dialect  perishes  year  by 
year.  In  Wales,  a  great  tradition  survives ; 
in  Ireland,  a  supreme  tradition  fades  through 
sunset-hued  horizons;  in  Celtic  Scotland,  a 
passionate  regret,  a  despairing  love  and 
longing,  narrows  yearly  before  a  dull  and 
incredibly  selfish  alienism.  The  Celt  has  at 
last  reached  his  horizon.  There  is  no  shore 
beyond.  He  knows  it.  This  has  been  the 
burden  of  his  song  since  Malvina  led  the 
blind  Oisin  to  his  grave  by  the  sea :  "  Even 
the  Children  of  Light  must  go  down  into 
darkness."  But  this  apparition  of  a  passing 
race  is  no  more  than  the  fulfilment  of  a 
glorious  resurrection  before  our  very  eyes. 
For  the  genius  of  the  Celtic  race  stands  out 
now  with  averted  torch,  and  the  light  of  it  is 
a  glory  before  the  eyes,  and  the  flame  of  it 
is  blown  into  the  hearts  of  the  stronger 
people.  The  Celt  fades,  but  his  spirit  rises 
in  the  heart  and  the  mind  of  the  Anglo-Celtic 
peoples,  with  whom  are  the  destinies  of 
generations  to  come. 

I  stop,  and  look  seaward  from  this  hill- 
slope  of  Dfin-I.  Yes,  even  in  this  Isle  of 
Joy,  as  it  seems  in  this  dazzle  of  golden  light 
and  splashing  wave,  there  is  the  like  mortal 

127 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

gloom  and  immortal  mystery  which  moved 
the  minds  of  the  old  seers  and  bards. 
Yonder,  where  that  thin  spray  quivers 
against  the  thyme-set  cliff,  is  the  Spouting 
Cave,  where  to  this  day  the  Mar-Tarbh, 
dread  creature  of  the  sea,  swims  at  the  full 
of  the  tide.  Beyond,  out  of  sight  behind 
these  craggy  steeps,  is  Port-na-Churaich, 
where,  a  thousand  years  ago,  Columba 
landed  in  his  coracle.  Here,  eastward,  is 
the  landing-place,  for  the  dead  of  old, 
brought  hence  out  of  Christendom  for  sacred 
burial  in  the  Isle  of  the  Saints.  All  the 
story  of  the  Gael  is  here.  lona  is  the 
microcosm  of  the  Gaelic  world. 

Last  night,  about  the  hour  of  the  sun's 
going,  I  lay  upon  the  heights  near  the  Cave, 
overlooking  the  Machar  —  the  sandy,  rock- 
frontiered  plain  of  duneland  on  the  west  side 
of  lona,  exposed  to  the  Atlantic.  There  was 
neither  bird  nor  beast,  no  living  thing  to  see, 
save  one  solitary  human  creature.  The  man 
toiled  at  kelp-burning.  I  watched  the  smoke 
till  it  merged  into  the  sea-mist  that  came 
creeping  swiftly  out  of  the  north,  and  down 
from  Uun-I  eastward.  At  last  nothing  was 
visible.  The  mist  shrouded  everything.  I 
could  hear  the  dull,  rhythmic  beat  of  the 
waves.  That  was  all.  No  sound,  nothing 
visible. 

128 


THE    ISLE    OF    DREAMS 

It  was,  or  seemed,  a  long  while  before  a 
rapid  thud-thud  trampled  the  heavy  air. 
Then  I  heard  the  rush,  the  stamping  and 
neighing,  of  some  young  mares,  pasturing 
there,  as  they  raced  to  and  fro,  bewildered  or 
perchance  in  play.  A  glimpse  I  caught  of 
three,  with  flying  manes  and  tails  ;  the  others 
were  blurred  shadows  only.  A  swirl,  and 
the  mist  disclosed  them;  a  swirl,  and  the 
mist  enfolded  them  again.  Then,  silence 
once  more. 

Abruptly,  though  not  for  a  long  time  there- 
after, the  mist  rose  and  drifted  seaward. 

All  was  as  before.  The  kelp-burner  still 
stood,  straking  the  smouldering  seaweed. 
Above  him  a  column  ascended,  bluely  spiral, 
dusked  with  shadow. 

XXIX 

The  kelp-burner :  who  was  he  but  the  Gael 
of  the  Isles?  Who  but  the  Gael  in  his  old- 
world  sorrow .-'  The  mist  falls  and  the  mist 
rises.  He  is  there  all  the  same,  behind  it, 
part  of  it;  and  the  column  of  smoke  is  the 
incense  out  of  his  longing  heart  that  desires 
Heaven  and  Earth,  and  is  dowered  only  with 
poverty  and  pain,  hunger  and  weariness,  a 
little  isle  of  the  seas,  a  great  hope,  and  the 
love  of  love. 

129 


THE    ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

XXX 

But  ...  to  the  island-story  once  more  ! 

Some  day,  surely,  the  historian  of  lona  will 
appear.  I  have  before  me  a  little  book  about 
lona,  written  by  the  one  man  who  better 
than  any  other  might  be  expected  to  tell  us 
not  about  lona,  which  many  could  do,  but  of 
lona,  which  few  can  do.  But  MacCailein 
Mbr  has  not  given  us  what  we  would  so 
gladly  have  had  from  him.  I  do  not  say  this 
in  reproach,  for  a  book  is  to  be  judged  by  its 
fulfilment  of  aim  and  not  by  what  it  foregoes. 
As  a  little  volume  to  tell  the  visitor  about 
lona,  the  Duke's  book  is  excellent.  It  is  a 
matter  of  regret  only  that  he,  in  whose  over- 
lordship  the  island  is,  did  not  care  also  to 
write  ^lona. 

How  many  "  history-books  "  there  are  like 
that!  Dead  leaves.  The  simile  is  a  travesty. 
There  is  no  little  russet  leaf  of  the  forest  that 
could  not  carry  more  real,  more  intimate 
knowledge.  There  is  no  leaf  that  could  not 
reveal  mystery  of  form,  mystery  of  colour, 
wonder  of  structure,  secret  of  growth,  the  law 
of  harmony ;  that  could  not  testify  to  birth, 
and  change,  and  decay,  and  death ;  and  what 
history  tells  us  more?  —  that  could  not,  to 
the  inward  ear,  bring  the  sound  of  the  south 
wind  making  a  greenness  in  the  woods  of 

130 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

Spring,  the  west  wind  calling  his  brown  and 
red  flocks  to  the  fold. 

But  why  do  I  speak  of  the  Duke  of 
Argyll's  "  lona  "  ?  Only  because  so  splendid 
an  opportunity  was  lost.  He  of  all  men 
should  not  have  fallen  short  of  it,  and  per- 
haps he  or  one  of  his  people  will  yet  give  us 
what  we  await. 

I  do  not  overlook  the  admirable  works 
written  on  the  Columban  Church,  on  the 
Culdees  of  lona,  on  its  archaeological  remains, 
on  every  period  of  its  ecclesiastical  history  : 
from  Dr.  Skene's  to  that  of  the  latest  histo- 
rian of  the  Celtic  Church.  But  these  are  all 
chapters  often  invaluable  and  all  profoundly 
interesting  for  the  one  historian  to  take  up, 
and  put  down  to  relate  in  a  new  way,  that 
shall  be  the  one  way. 

What  a  book  it  will  be  I  It  will  reveal  to 
us  the  secret  of  what  Oisln  sang,  what 
Merlin  knew,  what  Columba  dreamed,  what 
Adamnan  hoped  :  what  this  little  "  lamp  of 
Christ  "  was  to  pagan  Europe ;  what  incense 
of  testimony  it  flung  upon  the  winds;  what 
saints  and  heroes  went  out  of  it ;  how  the 
dust  of  kings  and  princes  was  brought  there 
to  mingle  with  its  sands ;  how  the  noble  and 
the  ignoble  came  to  it  across  long  seas 
and  perilous  countries.  It  will  tell,  too,  how 
the  Danes  ravaged  the  isles  of  the  west,  and 


i3» 


THE   ISLE   OF    DREAMS 

left  not  only  their  seed  for  the  strengthening 
of  an  older  race,  but  imageries  and  words, 
words  and  imageries  so  alive  to-day  that  the 
listener  in  the  mind  may  hear  the  crys  of 
the  viking  above  the  voice  of  the  Gael  and 
the  more  ancient  tongue  of  the  Pict.  It  will 
tell,  too,  how  the  nettle  came  to  shed  her 
snow  above  kings'  heads,  and  the  thistle  to 
wave  where  bishops'  mitres  stood ;  how  a 
simple  people  out  of  the  hills  and  moors, 
remembering  ancient  wisdom  or  blindly 
cherishing  forgotten  symbols,  sought  here 
the  fount  of  youth  ;  and  how,  slowly,  a  long 
sleep  fell  upon  the  island,  and  only  the 
grasses  shaken  in  the  wind,  and  the  wind 
itself,  and  the  broken  shadows  of  dreams  in 
the  minds  of  the  old,  held  the  secret  of  lona. 
And,  at  the  last  —  with  what  lift,  with  what 
joy  —  it  will  tell  how  once  more  the  doves 
of  hope  and  peace  have  passed  over  its 
white  sands,  this  little  holy  land  I  This 
little  holy  land  1  Ah,  white  doves,  come 
again  !     A  thousand  thousand  wait. 


^^ 


PRINTED  BY 
GEORGE  D.  LORING 
'PORTLAND 
tMAINE 


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